A member of the futon-making team. She is mainly responsible for the roll-shaping of the inner cotton (inner cotton) in our three-layer shikibuton, as well as pillow making.
The inner-cotton roll is my work
Our three-layer shikibuton is built like this — between the upper and lower layers offirm cotton sits a layer of inner-cotton roll. Shaping that inner cotton is the process I am chiefly responsible for, along with pillow making. It may sound mechanical, but the evenness of every roll decides the very first sensation a customer feels the moment they lie down.
“For the customer, it is the only one”
For us makers it is one of dozens or hundreds we handle in a day; for the customer who receives it, it is their one and only. That contrast is what I remind myself of before each shift — I must not relax just because “this is the 87th.” Every single one has to be made to the standard of the “first one.”
A futon made for my son
My second son is on his high-school baseball team — hard training, little rest. I want the shikibuton our workshop makes to help him recover more fully in what little sleep he gets. That feeling of “making something for a specific person” is a concrete thought I carry to every shift: when there is a real person in mind, the hands do not grow careless.
The breadth of generations in the workshop
Our colleagues span their twenties to their seventies — a wide range. Each generation has its own strengths: the young learn quickly, the senior carry deep experience. Covering for and learning from one another is, in its own way, another craft of the workshop. I hope to keep working here and to pass my skills on to the next generation.