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Craft Lady

February 18, 2017

She liked crafts. She was a craft maker. She quit her former job as an office worker, and started her own business. She worked alone. It was not profitable so her life was not easy, but her mind was calmer than before. On this day, she was looking for a watch in a 'one coin shop'. She was amazed that they sold watches for one dollar. They looked cheap but she didn't care because she would use only the gears from them. A few weeks ago she saw an advertisement for an expensive watch. It was a mechanical type of watch. It was made of titanium. Because of its lightness, quality, and status, many famous athletes from around the world bought this watch. The watch costed more than one hundred thousand dollars! Because she was curious about the watch after seeing the advertisement, she went to a watch shop in the downtown area. She asked the clerk to let her try on the watch. The clerk hesitated for a second because the craft lady didn't look rich enough for the watch, but allowed her to try it on. It was light and had a feeling of richness. The advertisement of this watch said that it weighed about 20 grams. Her own watch was about 50g, which was normal weight or maybe even a little lighter than normal watches for women. Before going to the watch shop, she checked the weight of 20 grams. She checked the weight of a one dollar coin, it was 8.1 grams.  She taped up 3 coins together, and then put them on her right wrist. It was light. At the shop, she felt that the watch was much lighter than what she had experimented with. Maybe it was because of the gorgeous appearance. She shook the watch to test it. But, the clerk became very upset, and forced her to take it off and told her to go. Now, as she looked at the watches at the 'one coin shop', she understood what she could do to make her own 'Feather Watch'. So she bought 10 watches which costed only one coin. She felt a strange feeling that those watches ticked the same as that very expensive watch. Next, she stopped by a sewing material shop, and bought some hemp string. In her apartment, she took the casings of one of the watches and weighed the gears of the watch. They weighed 3.5g. "Ok," she said, "My 'Feather Watch' should be about 5 grams." She compared it to a one dollar coin. "Even this weight is just like air." She smiled. She started to make a watch cover and a band. She had decided about the materials. Silicon for the cover. Silicon is as light as water. Silicon is used, for example, as a cover case for smartphones. Her measurements were thus: If the cover is 2.5cm diameter and 8mm thick (a normal ladies watch is about the same as a one dollar coin's diameter, 2.65cm), 2.5cm × 0.8cm = 2.0cc. And, the inner gadget took 1.3cc in this case so 0.7cc silicon was needed. The silicon's precise weight is 1.18g /1.0 cc.  So 0.7cc × 1.18g = 0.826g. For the wrist band, she would make out of hemp string. The hemp string reel that she bought was 20m, 0.9mm thick, and 10g. She liked knitting as her hobby. She tried knitting 1.5cm wide, 20cm long for a band. It took 5 minutes. She weighed it on the scale, it weighed 0.8g. Maybe she would need to decrease the weight the next time. She dyed the silicon green using a chemical dye. She dyed the hemp using herb leaves that she was growing in her garden. It was a beautiful green and smelled good. It took three days to complete her 10 special watches. They were just 5.0g. She put one of them on her wrist. The light green of the silicon matched the natural bright green of the band. It was light like a feather, and fitted on her wrist like a part of her skin. She smiled.   She took pictures of the watch and downloaded them on her own net-shopping web-site with the price. They were the only 10 watches in the world. Her crafts had a certain popularity among people who didn't put value on very expensive things, but put value on comfortable, well designed, and reasonable priced goods.

*tick :チクタク動く
*hemp :麻
*casing :外枠、外装
*measurement :計測
*diameter :直径