Family Crest (Kamon) Quilts

Tech Know Quilter Masters members recently completed a class on Sashiko Quilts. 

​Their challenge for the month was to design a Family Crest (Kamon) quilt.   I am pretty pumped to share their designs with you.

For my EQ tutorial,  I decided to walk you through my design process as I created a personal Family Crest quilt. 

There is no video as I wasn't sure how many of you would want to draft a "Schell Kamon Quilt", but there are plenty of ideas and I do share the EQ tools I used in creating my design. 

​Scroll down for the complete tutorial.

​Tech Know Quilters Masters Challenge - Japanese Crest (Kamon) Challenge

This particular challenge was definitely advanced.  Not only did they need to locate or draw their own Japanese Crest, they had to figure out how to incorporate their design in a quilt.

Some got as far as identifying a crest.  Others designed an entire quilt.  

​I am super excited to share their creativity with you.

Renae Frank Butler My design was inspired by my knowledge to learn, explore and teach.

Fran Heisey  My name appears to have neither a crest nor any particular meaning, so I decided to use a crane as my inspiration. We have sandhill cranes on the farm and once even a whooping crane, that now spends his summers in the neighborhood.  This image was found on Pinterest.

​The crest became stitching on my quilt.

Elly da Silva My son-in-law has a family crest from his mother. It is a French lily. I want to use it.

Elly da Silva I want to make a pattern with 4 French lilies

Loronda Schuler Obviously Schuler is German and not Japanese. This is what I found. Looking through Japanese crests I thought the image in the circle looked like a book which reminded me of a scholar. The other pic is the Japanese symbol for scholar.

Lee Wiencki - Unity Kamon

Dianna Carter

Dianna Carter

Julie Pedersen As a "crazy cat lady", I chose Tiger for my crest. Warrior also fits as we are a retired Army family. (My husband was a helicopter pilot.)

Julie Pedersen Here is our family Koman. I used the embroidery feature to add what I see as an oriental style cat's faces on each rhombus. Each cat is different as each of ours are different.

Julie Pedersen I added applique and stencils to complete this quilt....Perfect for our cat-crazy family.

Mary Groesbeck My maiden name goes nowhere (Hungarian). My married/divorced name (Groesbeck) is not a name I like or identify with...but...when I moved "home" to Louisiana, people who saw it written started calling me the word they knew. There is a bird here (the Grosbeak), which locally is pronounced with a long "o" and a silent "s". So I now also answer to Grosbeak. Anyway...I decided this was as good as any for this challenge.

Patricia Hansen My last name is Hansen (son of Hans) and I found out that Hans is a shortened version of Johann. However, I chose to do a wave pattern because in every generation from my great grandfather to my son, there has been a seaman. I only found one ship pattern in the huge list of Kamens, so the wave became my choice. Perhaps there a reason I live at the shore. The wave pattern looked more quilty than the ship. Here it is.

Edith Craig My surname is Craig. It is Scottish for crag meaning rock. When I first went into the AI generator and put in Scottish and rock, I got a guy in a kilt with a guitar. So not the right rock. Putting in crag got me closer to what I had in mind. Here is the inspiration picture.

Edith Craig Here is my quilt that this picture inspired. I used an initial in the center of each "rock" and then used a similar shape to form the borders.

Tech Know Quilters Masters Program

Tech Know Quilters Masters Program is open to an current (or former) Tech Know Quilter member that has completed at least 12 months of Tech Know Quilter classes. 

Send me a note if you would like to learn more.

Designing a Kamon (Japanese Crest) Quilt

Kamon, or family crests, are thought to have come into use around the tenth century among the Japanese aristocracy.  Several thousand different crests are known to exist.  These stylized motifs are characterized by a strength of design that makes each a striking piece of graphic art.

Kamon Symbols and the Five Major Crests

The main categories for the symbols used in kamon are animals, plants, nature, buildings and vehicles, and receptacles and patterns.

• Animals:  Among animals, turtles and cranes are common; they both symbolize longevity and so carry the meaning of bestowing the wish of a long and prosperous life on the family.
• Plants:  Botanical crests, using symbols like wisteria and peonies, represent fortune and fame (wealth and high status), as well as portraying a sense of elegance. The Tokugawa hollyhock is an example of this type of crest.
• Nature:  Crests that feature natural motifs like the moon, mountains, and thunder are used to convey a faith that is respectful of nature or offer prayers for a good harvest. 
• Buildings and Vehicles:  Among the kamon for buildings and vehicles is the kurumamon, a “carriage crest” depicted by the symbol of a wheel. This use of the ox-carriage as a motif would have indicated the prosperity of the nobility. An example of a building-type crest is the toriimon, where the symbol of a torii shrine gate shows that the person is from a family of Shintō priests.
• Receptacles and Patterns:  One of the receptacle and pattern crests is kuginukimon (“nail puller crest”); this representation of a tool is used by people involved in construction

Designing the "Schell" Crest

Japanese Crest Tsukiwa Ni Nozok Kiku drawn in EQ

I found my last name means “Dweller at the sign of the stallion; one with the qualities of a steed or stallion.”  So I probably could have found a horse.  However, I decided to play on the "Schell" name and go with something with shells in it.  

I fortunately found a crest that contained a seashell.

​After importing the image into EQ, I traced it as an applique motif.

This was pretty simple to trace.  I was able to work exclusively with three Shapes in the Applique toolkit.  No "real" drawing required.

I scoured the internet and found some fun taupe Japanese fabrics to use in coloring the motif.  (I still have a pretty large personal collection of taupe fabrics -- but didn't want the hassle of importing and sizing them.)

Using Wreathmaker I combined three of my crest motifs.  Hint:  Play with the slider bars under cluster spacing and resize cluster until you have a design you like.

Wreathmaker Settings for Crest Motif

Crest Motif after applying Wreathmaker

I drew three circles and sent to back.

Additional Changes to Crest Design

Then added four sets of rings to tie the seashell motifs together.

Addition of Rings to the Crest Design

Final Schell Crest Design Created in EQ

Complementary Designs

I then began thinking about what else I could include in my quilt.  I decided to see what else I could find with the "shell" concept.

Seashell Wreath

A search of "shell" in the EQ library, yield some quilting stencils that contained seashells.  They were part of a Quiltmaker Design Add-On Collection that I had purchased a long time ago.

​Stencils are typically put on layer 3 and are used for quilting designs.

Quiltmaker Designs Volume 3 - Sky and Water

Seashell Border 2 from Quiltmaker Designs Volume 3

Since stencils are not "closed" shapes, I needed to redraft the Seashell Border block with closed shapes (that can be filled with color).

I converted the Seashell Border 2 to guidelines (that could be traced).

Make sure to have both snap to node and auto-join segments when drawing turned on before drawing the patches.

Seashell Border 2 redrawn as applique motif

Using Wreathmaker, I turned my applique motif into a wreath with 15 sets of seashells.

Seashell Border Motif Wreath

Seashell Border Block

Another search for "shell", resulted in discovering a fan block.  This was part of BlockBase+ - another add-on collection. 

​This block was originally published in the Kansas City Star in 1948.

Sea Shell Quilt Notecard in EQ

Clamshell Background

BlockBase also had a clamshell block that was published by Finley in 1929 which fit with the theme in my design.

Since the clamshell design is a popular Sashiko design, it felt very appropriate to include in my quilt.

Clamshell Notecard in EQ

Clamshell Shrink and Flip

Using Serendipity (in the Block options), I was able to combine four clamshell blocks using Shrink and Flip.

Japanese Script

I found a site that allowed me to enter a name and it gave me the Japanese name along with the name written in Japanese script.   You can convert your name to Japanese here.

Schell translated to Sukeru.  Sukeru means to be transparent, to show through.

Schell Japanese Conversion

I did a screen shot of the symbols and traced them in EQ as an applique motif.  

Using the Bezier curve, I traced the center of each symbol.  And then applied the brush stroke to finish the patches.

Drawing Sukeru as an Applique Motif in EQ

Sukeru

Schell Koman Quilt Design

On the Quilt Worktable, I set up a new Custom Set quilt.

On the Layout tab I changed the size to 48"  x 48".

On the Borders tab I set up 4 Borders:

• Border #1 - 1" Long Horizontal
• Border #2 - 5" Blocks (Number of blocks set at 10 Horizontal and 10 Vertical)
• Border #3 - 1" Long Horizontal
• ​Border #4 - 1/2" Mitered (binding)

Schell Koman Quilt Layout

Schell Koman Quilt Layer 1

On Layer 1, I placed the clamshell Shrink and Flip Block.  Resized it to 48" x 48" and centered horizontal and vertical.

Using Control (PC) or Command (Mac), set the Sea Shell Quilt block in Border number 2.
​
Use Alt (PC) or Option (MAC) to rotate the blocks in each border.

Schell Koman Quilt Layer 2

On Layer 2, place the Schell Koman block and the seashell wreath.

The Schell Koman block was sized at 34" x 34".

The Wreath Seashell block was sized at 40" x 40".

The Sukeru motif was added and sized at 10" x 4".  The text was added to all four corners.

Here is my final Schell Koman quilt.

Final Schell Koman (Japanese Crest) Quilt

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the design process and this will encourage you to venture into your own original quilt design. 

I would love to see what you come up with. 

​Please feel free to share pictures in the Learning EQ Facebook group.

Learning EQ Koman Quilt Facebook Post

When Diana Carter saw the picture of my block, she decided to draft it herself and created her own quilt.

Dianna Carter

Happy quilting.

​Kari

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