Our Knitters

All Kesennuma Knitting products are made one-by-one by knitters living in the town. Each of our knitters has their own knitting history and their own knitting quirks; they also have families and their memories of the 3/11 disaster. At Kesennuma Knitting, we hope our relationship is something more than “knitter” and “customer.” We are happiest developing a person-to-person connection, with our products as the catalyst.

Let us introduce some of our knitters.

Junko-san has a calm, gentle aura and a sense of humor. One might imagine her as a book lover when she was a child. She ran a popular rice cake shop before the earthquake. She also taught Romanian Point Lace, and would sometimes spend more than a year on one piece. Thanks to her background of such detailed work, the knit of Junko-san's cardigans is especially fine and well balanced. The pattern is sharply defined, yet the feel is soft and fluffy. At her home in the temporary housing center, she knits her cardigans, sometimes taking a break to turn her hand to her Romanian Point Lace.
Emiko-san, with a charming smile, is a fashionable Kesennuma matron and a boutique owner. Long ago, she ran a yarn store, and along with her mother-in-law, she would knit sweaters night after night for customers. It was a warm way of passing time during the cold Tohoku winters, knitting away in the Kesennuma style. As a boutique owner, Emiko-san's sense of design is right on the mark. Whether it's the size adjustment or her working out a way to maintain the beauty of the design, her cardigans feature a impressive thoughtfulness to detail. Between her duties of running her boutique and caring for her mother-in-law, Emiko-san's cardigans sometimes end up taking time to complete. But the attention to detail will always be there, and she's always happy to knit for those who want one of her sweaters.
Feel free to drop by her shop and chat if you’re ever in Kesennuma.
Before the disaster, Ryoko-san worked at a food processing company in Kesennuma, where she was in charge of flavoring the mekabu seaweed product. She worked there for twenty-five years, and send it off on its way to supermarkets all over the country. In fact, anyone who likes mekabu has probably eaten some that has passed through her hands. The factory was washed away in the tsunami, and now she works at home and focuses on her knitting. She's finished many, many sweaters since she first began knitting at twenty, so her sweaters are easy to wear as she's very aware of the people who wear them. One can feel her whole history of knitting － both for herself and others － in every one of Ryoko-san's sweaters.
Among all our knitters, Kayoko-san is the real mood-maker. When the knitters gather, she is sure to be surrounded by laughter. Every week we hear one of the other knitters say that having her around is better than a professional comedian. She's always calm and can come to grips with any problem, thanks to her big heart and generosity. She's taking care of three grandchildren at home and often brings them to the knitting gatherings. She usually knits by herself at night, when she can truly concentrate. Last winter, she also knit ten pairs of gloves and ten hats for friends and members of her family. She puts the same warmth that goes into items for her loved ones into every sweater she makes for Kesennuma Knitting.
Takako-san lives with her husband and daughter in a lovely area with a view of the many Kesennuma rice fields. She began knitting when she was in her twenties, and would leave her elementary school-aged daughter with friends in order to commute to knitting school, where she found herself engrossed in her work. Takako-san treats her knitting with great modesty, always thinking about how she can do the best possible job at knitting beautifully, and looking at each stitch with great care. She doesn’t knit large numbers of sweaters, but that care and concern can be found in every one.
Mitsuko-san is always cheerful and lots of fun. She looks for the humor in every situation, no matter how bad. Though she lives in temporary housing since the disaster, she keeps her knitting colleagues in stitches with her stories about life and events in the housing area. Her father-in-law was a deep-sea fisherman who used to knit his own sweaters onboard the boat on the way to the fishing grounds. Now he watches Mitsuko-san knit, and can often be heard saying, “I used to do that, too.” Even when she's tired during work at her other job, she finds herself wanting to go home and knit. There's something cheerful about her sweaters, just like her personality.
“Simple elegance” is the easiest way to describe Yoshiko-san. Seeing her, you might want to address her as “Madam,” but her hobby is actually growing vegetables － carrots, Chinese cabbage, daikon radishes and zucchini. She prepares the fields for each season's items, and is attempting to grow every kind of vegetable that she wants to eat. She has liked working with her hands from a very young age, and is the type that thinks, “If it's cold outside, I’ll knit a hat,” and “If there's a vegetable I want to eat, I’ll grow it.” Her hobbies have always had a practical side. And it's that conscientious part of her that marks her history of knitting. Yoshiko-san always put her whole heart into every sweater.
Bright and cheerful is the best description of Kyoko-san. Prior to the disaster, her job was selling marine products － nori, sea urchin, salted fish and other items. After the disaster, she found herself spending more time at home, staring at the walls, until she remembered how fond she once was of knitting. She began studying again, and started knitting sweaters. One day, a neighbor who often had tea at Kyoko's house dropped by Kesennuma Knitting and told us, “There's a very good knitter I know. She loves to knit and has a great personality.”
That's how we met. Her care extends not only to the showy parts; even the seams and sleeves are beautiful. Kyoko-san's sweaters deserve a good look.
Setsuko-san is the elder of two sister knitters at Kesennuma Knitting. (Her sister is named Hideko, and you can read about her next.) At the knitting gatherings, the sisters always sit next to each other and can always be seen chatting happily while they work. After graduating from high school, Setsuko worked for many years in the administration section of a local hospital. After retiring, she found herself with time on her hands, and began knitting again － more for her children and grandchildren and other people she wanted to knit for than for herself. Of course, she was happiest when others were pleased with what she knitted. Recently, she's knitting white babywear for a new grandchild. Setsuko-san's sweaters are of excellent taste and are a nice look for an evening out.
Hideko-san is the younger of two sister knitters at Kesennuma Knitting. (Her sister is named Setsuko, and you can read about her above.) At the knitting gatherings, the sisters always sit next to each other and can always be seen chatting happily while they work. Hideko-san did rhythmic gymnastics at junior high, and came in second in the prefectural finals. We can believe it. We imagine her looking magnificently comfortable with the ribbon and the ball, and her upright approach to everything has all the appearance of a gymnastic event. She once knit sweaters for her kids at home, and remembers them being happiest when she finished one featuring the Super Mario character. In knitting the Etude what Hideko finds most difficult is making the very fine adjustments necessary to get the pattern to beautifully stand out. She pays great attention to this when knitting, and the result is an ideal overall balance and a beautiful raised pattern.
Kayoko-san is always quiet, always smiling. She's a calming influence on everyone around her. She also is a teacher of Cartonnage, a traditional French handicraft in which layered cardboard is made into boxes and covered with cloth. Some of our other knitters study Cartonnage under her tutelage. With that background, one can imagine how beautiful Kayoko's knitting is, and how much she puts into it. When she's asked why her knitting is so fine, she points out that she's been making sweaters since she was young for her family members and even for the friends of her older sister. When making sweaters for others, she says, “Of course it has to be well done.” So her sweaters seem to overflow with care and consideration for others.
We are sorry that we cannot introduce all of our knitters here.
Every knitter would be more than happy to knit a sweater for you.

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