I'm going to jail

or maybe::   I've never been caught.

As a public school teacher I confess I have lied, stolen, cheated, begged, grovelled and whined to get what I need for my students.  I can honestly say I have become emotionally attached to items/things I use daily and annually in the classroom.  And, I am proud to say in my younger days some of these items had been stolen.  But, my students grew and learned from these projects.  OK!  So I have no character or integrity but my students loved me.  87 days and then I will really have to pay attention to the laws.............nah!  we got the internet now.

From the copyright lawyer:  I'm going to jail:  but a cowboy is a cowboy and a cat is a cat and a fence is just a fence:  or is??? it stolen art work.

Francine,

Your question brings up several potential issues.  Technically, any copying of a creative or artistic work created by another is a violation of copyright.  Copyrights are created upon the creation of the work but not enforceable until after they are registered with the copyright office.  The registration may take place after the violation has occurred but the violator is only subject to actual damages as opposed to statutory damages.  Statutory damages are only available for violations occurring within a short period of time after creation of the work or any time after the work has been registered.  Changing the form, medium or arrangement of an original work can still result in a violation.  A changed work can result in a new copyright for what would be called a derivative work from the original.  For example, Vanilla Ice created a new song in Ice Ice Baby but sampled a portion of the song Under Pressure by Queen.  The sampling was a violation of the Queen copyright but the new song was also subject to being copyrighted.  I would guess that the subject of for profit or commercial use has been debated.  In essence, a violation is a violation.  There is an exception for something called fair use which usually relates to small samples or references to something, accrediting the original source, and not for commercial purposes.  For example, showing a slide of a painting to a class in a comparative art class is not typically considered a copyright violation.  As a practical matter, public showings that expose the copied work to larger audiences and commercial ventures including selling of your quilts would be more likely to result in legal action than non-public, non-commercial violations.  More specifically, if you take a photo of something created by another like a painting or photo, you are copying their work.  However, the closeness of the final result to the original image would be relevant to determining whether the copyright is being violated.  This means that determining a violation can be a very fact specific.