At the peak of their production, paper lanterns are carefully created before summer festival season/Odawara

Translated from the original article at: http://news.kanaloco.jp/localnews/article/1206290013/

June 29, 2012

Patterns and letters being crafted by hand=Yamazaki Lantern Store(Iidaoka, Odawara City)

Right before the summer festivals, Yamazaki Lanterns of Iidaoka, Odawara City reaches it's busiest production period.

A 4th generation lantern maker, Yuu Yamazaki (71) primarily receives orders from within the Kanagawa prefecture, with others coming in from Saitama and Yamagata. Hand-making the lanterns one by one, he carefully adds the patterns and letters. Right now, he's producing many "stretched moon" lanterns as well as regular lanterns both to be used for decorating mikoshi. In one day, he completes upwards of 10 lanterns.

Because of last year's earthquake disasters, his store saw a decrease in orders by 2/3rds, as one festival after another restrained themselves. This year, it's said that orders have returned to normal.


Original text
提灯づくりがピーク、夏祭りシーズン前に手作業で丁寧に/小田原
2012年6月29日

手作業で模様や字入れを行う＝山崎提灯店（小田原市飯田岡）

夏祭りシーズンを前に提灯（ちょうちん）づくりが小田原市飯田岡の「山崎提灯店」でピークを迎えている。

４代目の山崎勇さん（71）は県内をはじめ、埼玉や山形からも注文を受け、一つ一つ手作業で丁寧に模様や字入れを行っている。この時期はみこしを飾る弓張（ゆみはり）提灯やほおずき提灯の製作が多く、１日に10張り程度を完成させていく。

昨年は震災の影響で祭りの自粛が相次ぎ、注文が３分の２ほどに減ったが、今年は例年並みに戻ったという。