I had assumed the proposal I submitted to the publisher had long been forgotten, but apparently, they had some sort of meeting where proposals were reviewed, and mine happened to pass through, so I was invited for a face-to-face meeting. I ended up giving one of my usual two-hour passionate talks to people who, frankly, knew nothing about knitting. I wasn’t sure whether the publisher was impressed or not when I left. The only thing I remember from that day is the deputy editor saying, “Written knitting patterns are kind of like programming languages, aren’t they?”
In any case, the decision was made to publish the book. This meant I suddenly had to juggle both amirisu work and the intense preparation for the book. I would wake up at 4 a.m. to proofread, take the first train of the day to attend photo shoots, write multiple proposals, and spend entire days in cafés working on the manuscript. Looking back, I can only say this: there’s no way I could handle that workload now. I’m honestly relieved that the busiest period of my life was over before my eyesight started to go.
In February 2013, Stylish Knitting Patterns from Around the World: Enjoy Knitting English Patterns was published by BNN Shinsha. It wasn’t 100% my vision since the editor’s input was also reflected, but I do believe it conveyed at least a glimpse of the knitting world I lived in and wanted to share.
As I wrote in my recent essay “Controversy,” my everyday life was thrown into chaos after the book was published. On top of the continuing workload from amirisu, my days felt like a constant storm. Just as things were beginning to settle down again, my husband was transferred once more, this time back to Kansai. After years of shuttling back and forth between the Kanto and Kansai regions, this move marked the point where Kansai became our permanent base.
In the past, when I didn’t yet have a steady job, I preferred living in Tokyo since I thought that living in the city would somehow solve things. However, by that time, I had a stable group of students, and I could work from anywhere with just a computer and internet access. There was no longer much reason to cling to Tokyo. I had no regrets about leaving, and I remember feeling genuinely excited to start a new life.
I would schedule lessons in Tokyo in batches and make monthly trips. During these trips I would also have meetings for amirisu. I usually stayed at Meri’s place or my sister’s house. Looking back, it was quite a demanding schedule, but we had already gotten used to working from different locations, so I wasn’t worried about running amirisu that way.
I continued teaching both in Tokyo and Kansai, but during this period, amirisu steadily grew larger. Soon after moving, we officially registered amirisu as an LLP (Limited Liability Partnership). It felt a little more like a real company, though in reality it was still just the two of us, Meri and me. Those days consisted of sitting in front of the computer and shipping magazines day in and day out.
The following year, amirisu LLP finally took a big step forward: opening a shop.