vintage reproduction

I've been totally stoked about Spoonflower (design & print your own fabrics!) ever since I first heard about it a few months ago, but this is the first chance I've had to play around with creating any designs. I don't have any kind of background in graphic design, although I have learned to use The Gimp (it's free!) over the last few years, and just this week downloaded Inkscape (free too!) in order to draw freehand. I used the tutorials from MammaMade, and they were incredibly helpful.




















This is a pattern based off a vintage fabric that I only had a little snippet of. It will be a pretty small pattern... and I changed up the design and colors some from the original. It took a little fudging, but I finally got it to tile nicely.

Does anyone know what the copyright laws are for vintage fabrics and feedsack? I've seen reproductions for sale that are exact replicas (I know because I have the originals!), but I don't know if the designer had to buy the copyright to replicate it. I'd like to be able to offer some reproductions or re-workings of my favorites for sale in my Etsy shop, but I don't want to run into any trouble!

Update: Found some great info over at True Up and through numerous Google searches... but the boundaries in this area are murky at best. It seems being clear that the fabric is based on a vintage design, and not of your own design, is the best way to go. Determining whether a fabric is in the public domain seems next to impossible.