“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” – it’s a saying that surely applies to the skill of embroidering kasut manek, or the Peranakan beaded slippers. Katong Gal discovers this essential part of the process as she starts to make a pair of her own.
Katong Gal writes:
My friend kindly started me off with the loan of a frame and a lesson, Beading 101. The first lesson I learnt was how to start sewing the beads on, as she started me off with a practice row. Then things got serious. We selected a pattern – a single large flower, identified the beads and then tried to find a suitable shoe template. Here, problems arose. Carefully estimating how big the pattern would be on the shoe, she told me that the open-toed shoe I was planning on was too narrow to support the pattern. We had to try again, and this time I selected a simple repetitive pattern – a “Cloud Forest” which would stretch across the shoe. She then carefully traced the outline of the shoe template onto the canvas on the top of the beading frame, and started off on the first row for me. Then, she felt that the thread we were using was a little too thick for the needle, unpicked the beads she had just sewn on, and started again, observing sagely that if she was having problems, it was likely that I too would have difficulties with the needle.
She’s only at the beginning phases of making her kasut manek, but be sure to check in on her from time to time to see her progress. In the meantime, it sounds like an opportune time to check out fine examples of kasut manek at the Peranakan Museum.
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