Quilting and Copyright Laws

Many landscape quilters work from photographs.  If these photos are your own...no problem.   You own the rights to them and are free to use them as you please. (99% of the time anyway.)

The problem comes when using images by other people.  If you make a piece closely resembling another person's artwork,  without permission, you are violating copyright law--even if you change the image in some way.  One of the more famous cases in recent years was the 2008 poster of Obama's image over the words HOPE.  The poster artist used a news photo of Obama without prior permission of the photographer, and was sued.  If you are just planning to hang the finished piece in your guest bathroom, it probably doesn't matter, but if there is any chance your piece will be exhibited publicly, get permission, or forget it.

If you find an image on, let's say Flickr Commons, and really want to make a quilt based on it, you need to write to the photographer and ask permission.  Most people are quite flattered that an artist wants to use their photo as a starting point for a piece, and readily give permission.  Be sure to keep the written permission with any papers related to the quilt.  If the quilt is entered into a show, you will be asked to declare that the work is original, or that you have permission to use the image.

There are many sources of copyright-free images that artists can use.  NOAA, for example, has a cache of copyright free images on their website.    Dover publishes books full of copyright free images.  (Susan Carlson's famous Pink Rhino is based on a Dover print.)  Even when using a copyright-free image, it is still good practice to acknowledge the source of the image.

You'll put a lot of work into your quilt, so try not to compromise it with copyright issues, but it's a bit of a mind field.  To see how complicated things can get, read this post on the C&T  Publishing blog.

Making a Pattern for Your Landscape Quilt

Page protector with traced image of the photo. 

There are a couple different ways to turn a photo or drawing into a large-sized landscape quilt pattern.  Both methods I use begin with turning the sketch or photo into a simple line drawing.

Make a Line Drawing of Your Photo
The easiest way to do this is to print your photo as an 8x11.5 print, and slip the print into a page protector.  The page protector keeps the print from shifting around while your trace the image onto the plastic with a permanent marking pen.   Trace just the major elements in the photo (or drawing.)  Remember you are tracing SHAPES, not just lines.  Each shape will end up being a piece of fabric.

Simplify by leaving out fussy little details, or unwanted elements such as parked cars or overhead electrical wires.  What you are going for here are the major components of the design.

I know some people have had success using a photo editing program to turn photos into line drawings, but I've never found this very satisfactory.

Turn Your Line Drawing into a Full-Sized Quilt Pattern
Once the line drawing is complete it will be used to make the full-sized  pattern for your quilt.  A couple of tried and true methods for making the pattern are:

1. Go to Kinkos
2. Use an Overhead Projector

Taking Your Line Drawing to a Photocopy Store
By slipping a piece of plain white paper into to the page protector behind your line drawing, you have a black and white image that can be photocoped.   FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) can make large photocopies for about 80 cents a square foot.  Most shops have either a 36-inch wide printer which can make prints of any length, or a 48-inch printer.  Determine how large you want your quilt to be.  It is possible to break a design into several pieces, print the pieces, then tape them together.  This is a cheap, and easy way to go.   Take your image to the photocopy store on a thumb drive as a Kinko as a PDF attachment.

Using an Overhead Projector to Enlarge a Quilt Pattern
Since I live a long way from a photocopy shop, and I usual am anxious to get started on a new idea, I under the laborious method of using an overhead projector that I bought from Amazon for $60.  It has saved me both time (traveling to the photocopy shop from the island where I live) and money.  Even at 80-cents a square foot, photocopying can get spendy.

The other thing I like about using the overhead, is I am not limited by size.  Just by pulling the projector back, I can enlarge the image to just about any size I'd like.  I put my page-protector line drawing on the overhead, and tape butcher paper (which comes in 36 inch by 1000 foot rolls.  I'd like to buy a roll of butcher paper, but I usually buy it at an office supply store in increments of a 100 feet or so.)  Once the butcher paper is in place, I just turn the overhead projector on, and begin the laborious, but somehow satisfying task of tracing the image onto the butcher paper.

As I'm tracing, I become very familiar with the image, and start thinking of how I will handle various elements in the quilt, what quilting I might do, and how to solve some of the trickier parts of the composition.

When having the design photocopied, get two copies made if you can afford it.  If I blow up my design on with an overhead projector, I never make two copies, but always wish I had a second one that could be put aside as the master, while the other working pattern gets altered along the way with a little WhiteOut and some pencil lines.

NEXT:  A word about copyright

Articles you may be interested in:
Landscape Quilting How-to, The Materials
Choosing a Photo or Image to Make into a Quilt
Quilting and Copyright Laws

Choosing a Subject or Image To Make into a Quilt

Most landscape quilts begin as a photo or drawing. Whatever image you choose, there are some things to keep in mind:

• Your image should have a strong focal point, but generally, the focal point shouldn't shouldn't be smack in the middle. Choose an image that has a background, middle ground and foreground because this is more interesting than a flat subject with no perspective.
• If you do not have much drawing experience, it is best to choose a relatively simple subject for your first effort. Don't start by trying to do a portrait for example. Buildings can be a good choice since they are usually a collection of straight lines. Natural elements like foliage, mountains, rocks, seascapes, are also good choices because they are organic shapes--who's to say your rock or mountain is wrong??
• Look for images with strong value changes. For example, pale tulips against dark tree trunks. Places where the lightest light is against the darkest dark are dramatic.
• Look for an image that tells a story. A dog sitting on grass doesn't tell a story, but the same dog, sitting on the same grass looking up at a cat in a tree tells a story.
• Your image should have elements that move the eye around the whole composition. Things like secondary focal points, value changes, and use of color can pull the eye around the composition.

In the end, the most important factor is that you really like the image, because you are going to be working on it for a long time.

NEXT:  How to enlarge a photo or   drawing to make a full-size pattern

You may also be interested in these postings:
Landscape Quilting How-to, the Materials you Need
Making a Pattern for your Landscape Quilt
Quilting and Copyright Laws 

Landscape Quilting How-to, The Materials

I live in a remote location, and have been very grateful to people who've generously shared their knowledge on-line.  Melissa Will, for example who shared years worth of her expertise for low-water immersion dyeing, and Leah Day who has put an encyclopedia of information about free-motion quilting on her blog.

I'm going to teach a class in October on how to design and make an original landscape quilt.  I've been thinking of just putting all the information for my class on-line, and since I've just started a new project, I think I can just work my way through my latest quilt project, and post what I'm doing, step-by-step.  If what I write doesn't make sense, email me, and I'll try to clarify the directions.  So, here's my first installment.

Materials I Use for Landscape Quilting:

• Nylon netting.  (not tulle which is soft and gossamer, but petticoat netting.  The scratchy stuff that makes those square dancing skirts stand out from the dancers' legs like a beach umbrella.)  Get white.  It's not going to show, so color is only distracting.  This is cheap (About $1.39 a yard at Joannes.  Get 5 or more yards, it'll be the foundation for various elements in your quilt.)
• Mono-poly clear thread.  Superior Thread's is the best.  Because it is polyester, not nylon, it takes the heat of the iron without melting or getting brittle, and it doesn't become an instant rats nest when you sew.  I'm usually all about cheap and/or free, but this thread is worth the money.  (2200 yards for $8 on the Superior Website.)  This thread doesn't pass the Harry Potter test for invisibility, but it comes darn close.  The thread comes in clear and smoke.  Get clear, then later if you decide you mostly work on dark fabrics, you can spring for the smoke.
• Freezer paper  DON'T buy the fancy pre-cut sizes sold in quilt shops.  Get the grocery store variety...you can tear off as large a sheet as you need, and because its reasonably priced you'll be less timid about using more if a pattern piece just isn't working and you need to make another.
• A Page Protector.  Those 8x11.5 plastic envelopes with the binder holes already prepunched.  You'll use this to trace your photo.
• Shapie Fine-Point Pen and a Shapie extra-fine point pens  Get them in black or dark blue
• Spray Starch or Spray Sizing.  Get the cheap stuff.  Best Pressed is probably great, but 16 ounces costs nearly $9, while 22 ounces of Niagra Spray Starch in the pump bottle costs $2.30.   The cheap stuff works great, and I don't miss the lavender scent of Best Pressed.
• A small, cheap, paint brush.  Probably a size 6 to size 8 works best.  A brush like the ones that come in a kiddie watercolor set is fine.  DO NOT buy some fancy (a.k.a expensive) paint brush at the art store.  Come to that, a Q-tip works fine too.
• All the usual stuff--pins (LOTS of pins), needles, bobbin thread, paper scissors, fabric scissors, sewing machine, iron, and of course fabrics appropriate for the project you have in mind.  

Next: How to choose a subject.

Other Posts you may enjoy:
Choosing a Subject for your Landscape Quilt
Making a Pattern for your Landscape Quilt
Quilting and Copyright Laws