Stencil/Design Help

[AJBryant]

Not going to spoonfeed us a clue, either, are you?

Well, there are just dozens and dozens of designs. It's rather hard to start describing them. You can get some decent ideas by watching old Japanese flix and living on Izutsu-san's site.

Tony

[Noriko]

ajbryant said:

Remember -- the Japanese were sticklers for detail.

There are specific medallion patterns and fabric styles that are deemed ONLY appropriate for kariginu of for nôshi/hôeki no hô, etc. And the size and placement of the medallions differs depending on the fabric and its purpose.


Effingham

Well, basically, I'm basing my design/placement off of the pictures at the Japanese costume museum and the textiles, which seem to have a generic pattern of staggered rows, and appear to have the design woven in (though I'm just using white paint on maroon/suo fabric).

[AJBryant]

That's usually safe.

The pattern usually works out (at least for kariginu fabric!) so that for each 18" wide fabric panel, there's one 5" dia. medallion in the center and two halves on either side of it (with each "half" ending just before the selvedge, so two halves can be sewn together), and two whole medallions below staggered like traditional brickwork, and then the pattern repeats.


Effingham

[Noriko]

Ah, and one more silly question. Would certain plants be restricted to certain families? I found a design that incorporates paulina leaves that is downright beautiful. However, my persona is a low ranking noble, with really no ties to the Fujiwara. I know the imperial crest is a chrysanthemum, but I think the Fujiwara coopted the wisteria as well... or something like that.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Ah, and one more silly question. Would certain plants be restricted to certain families?

When Ii-dono visited this spring and was turned loose in Kinokuniya, he bought a book on kamon. There was evidence that kamon were not necessarily reserved to a single user or family. As I recall, there were often multiple names linked to the same symbol.

Hopefully, he can chime in here with more info.

BTW, I found this the other day - right now Babelfish keeps spitting it back at me with an error message, but the tomoe (third kamon down) is supposedly associated with the Saionji or Saionzi.....

www.harimaya.com/o_kamon1/kuge_html/kuge_3.html

Saionji no Hanae

[Noriko]

makiwara said:

BTW, I found this the other day - right now Babelfish keeps spitting it back at me with an error message, but the tomoe (third kamon down) is supposedly associated with the Saionji or Saionzi.....

www.harimaya.com/o_kamon1/kuge_html/kuge_3.html

Saionji no Hanae

Actually, while it doesn't translate whole websites, I've had good luck with this site for my translation needs:
ocn.amikai.com/amitext/indexUTF8.jsp
It's pretty good, though sometimes it misses a kanji compound or two. Though I was able to run your site through, well, not babble fish but a google version of translator- www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

Anyway, the whole reason I like plum blossoms and try to use them in my projects is that they were the mon of the Sugawara family, so I try to incorporate them. Unfortunately, they're not that amazingly pretty in their mon format, well, the one from the front anyway, with those five round petals. Even enclosed in a circle or some other design, they just look something you'd decorating shower curtains in some Florida hotel...

[Takeda Sanjuichiro]

noriko said:

Ah, and one more silly question. Would certain plants be restricted to certain families?

Certain plants were reserved for the imperial family, and those they bestow the right to use them on. Other mon were pretty much up for grabs, provided you didn't tick off a family that could make you suffer for it. There was not a Heraldic Court so to speak like you find in England.

I found a design that incorporates paulina leaves that is downright beautiful. However, my persona is a low ranking noble, with really no ties to the Fujiwara. I know the imperial crest is a chrysanthemum, but I think the Fujiwara coopted the wisteria as well... or something like that.

The Paulownia (kiri) was reserved for the use of the Imperial Household, IIRC by 660. By the begining of the Heian period (a practice probably starting in the Nara period) a good number of courtiers were permitted to wear the Paulownia upon their robes and upon carts.

IIRC it was GoDaigo (or GoToba?) who granted it to Ashikaga Takauji to use. Invokig the tradition of it being bestowed upon the Shogun, or high ranking Buke. Toyotomi Hideyoshi used it, I am not sure if he utilized it before his accension as Naidaijin (vice minister) or as Kampaku (Imperial Regent) but as Kampaku it would have undoubtedly been bestowed upon him. Interestingly I belive I read somewhere that Ieyasu was given permission to use it, but chose not to, intead passing the right to use it onto a subordinate branch of his original family line (Matsudaira).

To answer your question, in the Heian era 7 lines of the Fujiwara used the wisteria as a carrige device/clothing mark. Some individuals and specific decendants from those individuals were entitled to use the paulownia or versions of it, but these were typically very high ranked ministers.

-Takeda

[Noriko]

takedasanjuichiro said:

TTo answer your question, in the Heian era 7 lines of the Fujiwara used the wisteria as a carrige device/clothing mark. Some individuals and specific decendants from those individuals were entitled to use the paulownia or versions of it, but these were typically very high ranked ministers.

-Takeda

Ah, thanks. Well, guess it's back to the drawing board... er, photo editiing program. I wonder what the Gods of Authenticity would think if cobbled together my own design, using elements I liked, instead of one I found online...

[Saionji Shonagon]

I'd forgotten Takeda-dono is into the heraldry bits too. Well, that answers that question. Thanks Mr. T!

Well, guess it's back to the drawing board...

Right beside you, cousin.
www.otomiya.com/kamon/plant/fuji.htm
Eighth one down on the left, looks like it came right off a Heian brocade. 3.5" is going to be a bitch to cut out. 4" is a little better. Hey, translation says it's a rattan plant! Who knew?

I wonder what the Gods of Authenticity would think if cobbled together my own design, using elements I liked, instead of one I found online...

I tried that once - never let me doodle unsupervised! Three maple leaves, stems in, alternated with three arrows, heads in, fletching out. It looks really good - and I am told completely violates the rules of Japanese heraldry. ;-> Then again, in an age where you can barely find out what a woman's name is because she's usually mentioned as somebody's daughter or wife, do you think she'd have her own individual kamon? I don't. So it's not a huge issue for me whether the SCA's College of Heralds gets their hands on it.

S.

[Noriko]

makiwara said:

Right beside you, cousin.
www.otomiya.com/kamon/plant/fuji.htm
Eighth one down on the left, looks like it came right off a Heian brocade. 3.5 is going to be a bitch to cut out. 4 is a little better. Hey, translation says it's a rattan plant! Who knew?
S.

Actually, that's the one I liked, with the wisteria branches and all. It's just so pretty!!! But I think I found something I liked on another site.
www.harimaya.com/o_kamon1/zukan/ume2_z.html
-the lowest row, third from the right. saw it in the textile gallery but I think it's more modern, well, modern being Edo period.
Still plums but instead of them being flush together, with three petals in the middle, like on the Kamon site, it's sort of rotated.
www.wood.co.jp/kamon/ume.htm
-sixteenth from the top (er, fourth from the bottom, if you don't count that last mon on it's own line) second from the right. didn't see it on any other mon site so not quite sure how period it is...
or I could just go with something more basic... Ah, so many decisions! I'll have to make them *all* into stencils then and try them out on scrap fabric.

[Saionji Shonagon]

www.harimaya.com/o_kamon1/zukan/ume2_z.html
-the lowest row, third from the right. saw it in the textile gallery but I think it's more modern, well, modern being Edo period.

Pretty. My gut feeling is that you could probably use it for a late 16th century kosode, but that it doesn't really look like the Heian stuff.

www.wood.co.jp/kamon/ume.htm

The one that looks like the plum blossom atom? (Takeda-dono is quite right - my imagination is a rather warped place)
I think that could work - certainly will be easier to cut into a stencil than the rattan vine one.

The test print idea is a good one.

S.

[Takeda Sanjuichiro]

makiwara said:

I'd forgotten Takeda-dono is into the heraldry bits too. Well, that answers that question. Thanks Mr. T!

Well, guess it's back to the drawing board...

I was just trying to answer the question asked, I hope I did not come across as a poo-poo head.

Right beside you, cousin.
www.otomiya.com/kamon/plant/fuji.htm
Eighth one down on the left, looks like it came right off a Heian brocade.

It looks very good. I don;t have my books to double check the translation though, I don't recall "rattan" as being a known element, I think it has a diffrent English plant name assosicated with it. (heck for all I know wisteria is a cousin of rattan)

I wonder what the Gods of Authenticity would think if cobbled together my own design, using elements I liked, instead of one I found online...

It can be done, sometimes it is hard to identify which elements are appropriate to go whith other elements, and in what fasion. I realy need to finish the Japanese Armorial site.

I tried that once - never let me doodle unsupervised!...It looks really good

I liked it!

...and I am told completely violates the rules of Japanese heraldry.

Yeah, it was a bit odd for pre 1600. Though I dare say you probably could put it out in the mid-late Edo period and no-one would notice.

[AJBryant]

Re. our discussion on medallion pattern (etc.) on Japanese fabric:

I just remembered a website that may be useful. It's intended to provide backgrounds for webbing, but the designs are all Heian-classical.

The main page is kariginu.jp/sozai/index.htm .

Medallions specifically for kariginu are on kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai2.htm .

The mon of various kuge houses (Saionji row two, second one) are on kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai3.htm .

Various designs for suikan and similar outfits taken from a Heian scroll: kariginu.jp/sozai/emaki.htm .

THIS PAGE ( kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai9.htm ) IS SPECIAL: It has fabric designs that are restricted for use in the imperial family. It was presented as information and in the interest of completion, and NOT to be used for web design.

This one ( kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-1.htm ) has designs for nôshi, kariginu, sashinuki, and women's sokutai fabrics.

This one ( kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-2.htm ) has patterned (jacquard) fabrics and is primarily used for hô and sashinuki fabrics. It breaks down the patterns over several pages. kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-21.htm has tasuki (enclosed designs); kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-22.htm has tachiwaki (cascading waves of designs -- I love kumo tachiwaki); kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-23.htm has "karakusa" ("chinese grass") and others including kikkô (hexes) and a few old printed leather patterns for armour; kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-24.htm has brocades .

"Large-scale patterns" are on kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-3.htm .

"Medallions" (mostly suitable for kariginu, though there are a couple for formal men's trousers as well, and some are also sashinuki patterns) are on kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai1-4.htm .

On kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai2-2.htm are a varitey of designs with a "textured" fabric look (hey, this is for web design!).

On page kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai4.htm are "futae orimono" ("dual-layered weaves") -- fabric with a double set of weave patterns; a brocade overlaying the jacquard base. Futaeori is typical of karaginu for you fashion babes.

Webpage borders: kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai5.htm .

Webpage borders based on kasane no irome designs: kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai52.htm .

Various icons, lines, etc.: kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai6.htm .

Random background patterns based on fabrics: kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai7.htm .

Onmyôji-themed designs: kariginu.jp/sozai/onmyouji.htm .

A huge array of white-based page backgrounds based on fabric patterns can be found on kariginu.jp/sozai/sozai8.htm .

Effingham

[Saionji Shonagon]

I was just trying to answer the question asked, I hope I did not come across as a poo-poo head.

That does not make you a poo-poo head. Why am I thinking Poo Poo Head was a character from "The Mikado"?

I knew somebody would know more than I did on the subject! (Not hard at all.) Thanks for chiming in.

I don;t have my books to double check the translation though, I don't recall "rattan" as being a known element, I think it has a diffrent English plant name assosicated with it. (heck for all I know wisteria is a cousin of rattan)

No clue - I was at the mercy of Babelfish and that's what it came up with....

I liked it!

IIRC, the universal reaction was, "Wow, that looks pretty cool, but what's it supposed to be?" Very Makiwara. So close to right but with some weirdass twist to guarantee a subtle brain cramp, right?

Must run, kiddies.

Catch you later.
Saionji

[Toastygawa]

Effingham-Dono, this site is exactly what I've been looking for! Thank you for sharing it. If I use one of the images in the construction of a website, how can I properly credit this source?