[The past is like smoke? Cloth shoes]

Recently, I saw "shoe samples" and handmade cloth shoes on the Internet, which reminded me of this. Single shoes and cotton shoes that I wore before I was ten years old were made by my mother. Further search memory, I can really remember the whole process of my mother making shoes.

1. Make a mistake

The word "Gebei" is a transliteration of a dialect. I don't know if it is written correctly. When I finish describing the production process, you will understand the meaning.

The first step is to brush a layer of clear water on the chopping board (the panel for making pasta at home) and spread a newspaper-sized special paper separating the back, which is similar to Xuan paper but rougher than Xuan paper for writing. The purpose of brushing clean water is to make the paper flat and fixed, so that it can be easily uncovered after water vapor evaporates.

The second step is to brush the paste on the paper, and put the pieces of cloth cut from the worn-out clothes together with the cloth ends, usually four to five layers. Stick a new white cloth on the last layer of the sole, and stick a black cloth, gray cloth or your favorite color on the upper. Exposed after natural drying, it is a flat and tidy cloth.

Play with hemp rope

Hemp rope is the suture line for collecting soles and shoes. The beating process is divided into three steps: hemp yarn separation, billet twisting and rope twisting.

Dismantling hemp yarn is to comb the bought first hemp balls, remove the coarse and extract the fine, separate them into filaments and tie them into small bundles for later use.

Stranding is to use a special tool called "hanging" to hang chopped flax, lift it with one hand and turn it with the other, and continuously twist it into a long and uniform single strand. The mobile car, known as the "moving hammer" in the northeast, has the following shape and the hook is made of iron. I've seen hammers made of wood and cow bones. Mom used cow bones, maybe it was used for a long time. They are golden yellow and look like antiques, but I don't know where they are.

Twisting rope is to combine a single strand blank into two strands and then twist it into hemp rope. One end of the rope for receiving the bottom is provided with a thin tail for threading the needle and thin heads at both ends of the shoe.

When the two materials are ready, you can go to the next step and make the sole.

Make soles

Making soles is generally divided into four steps: cutting, trimming, sticking and closing as usual. Shoe samples are handed down, big shoes have big samples and small shoes have small samples, which are selected and cut, and there is no technical content. Trimming is to wrap the cut burr on the back with a white cloth with a width of two fingers, and generally paste it directly. The key technology is to ensure that each sole has the same size and shape after being glued, because it can't be cut any more. The fourth step is the most important, sew the glued back together with hemp rope. The density of stitches and the tension of each stitch directly affect the firmness, wear resistance and aesthetics of shoes.

(To be continued)