The Cloth Shoes

I grew up wearing the cloth shoes made by my mother, the most worn as a child were corduroy shoes, and I still have a special feeling of closeness to cloth shoes until now. I remember when I was a child, my mother sewed all the shoes for the whole family of eight, and she made nearly 20 pairs of shoes every year, one pair of cotton shoes and one pair of single shoes for each person. In those days of material scarcity, my mother used her skillful hands to add some color to the monotonous and poor days.

In my memory, the shoes my mother made were delicate and durable. My mother would embroider on the uppers of our sisters' shoes with designs such as a hundred phoenixes and two butterflies. The embroidery was so beautiful and vivid that it attracted the attention of the neighbors. Every now and then, some young daughters-in-law in the village would come to my mother for advice, and some girls from other villages would come to my mother. The thrifty mother usually washed and dried the scraps of cloth and some clothes that could no longer be worn and stored them. Whenever the farming time comes, he will grind the rice into powder and boil it into rice paste, spread the washed cloth layer by layer, according to the shape of the cloth stitching, layer by layer paving layer by layer sizing, I don't know how many layers, the layer by layer of cloth, such as a piece of memory of the scraps, set in the depths of my memory. Then, my mother glued the stained cloth on the door panel layer by layer, and when it was dried and uncovered, it became the material for making cloth shoes.

Making a pair of shoes was not an easy task, it was a very complicated and time-consuming process. At that time, my mother had to work in the production team during the day, so the work of making the soles could only be done at night. As I remember, my mother took out a bamboo basket with all her needles and thread and cloth trimmings. Under the kerosene lamp, my mother first used a thimble to put the needle over the sole of the shoe, then pulled it out with a needle clip, then drew the thread, and when it was in the bottom, she used her strength to strangle it again, so that the thread would not lie loosely on the sole. For each stitch, I had to use a thimble to top the eye of the needle, then pull it hard, and then put the needle in my hair by my ear and rub it. Later I realized that there was grease in the hair, so it was easier to rub the needle through. Because the sole of the shoe is thicker, the needle is so. The sole of my mother's shoes was very delicate, the stitches were fine and proportional, like a white sesame seed, and my mother, who was very handy, also put a diamond pattern or auspicious character in the middle of the sole, which was very beautiful.

Sometimes when I woke up, I saw my mother still holding the white sole in her left hand under the dim light, and pinching the needle with the thimble on her right middle finger, leading the long thread and sewing it tightly. The silhouette of my mother sitting under the lamp, sewing the soles of her shoes, became one of the most familiar scenes of my childhood. In particular, the scene of my mother sucking blood from her fingers with her mouth is forever fixed in my memory, as my mother would sew her love for her children into this stitch.

After the soles were finished, the uppers had to be made, and my mother went to the village supply and marketing office to buy several feet of corduroy fabric. The upper was a meticulous job, and although it was hand-stitched, every stitch was even and meticulous. Both sides of the upper were cut in an inverted "U" shape, each with a piece of "elastic fabric", so that the feet were slightly fat and thin to wear. Next, the upper and the sole are combined together, called the "upper shoe". It doesn't take much work to put on the shoes, but the beauty of a pair of shoes depends on the level of the shoes. If you don't have a good hand, the upper of the shoe will be off, and it will be ugly and uncomfortable to wear. The shoes my mother put on were always tightly sewn, round and full, and comfortable.

Nowadays, my mother's eyes have long been presbyopic and she can no longer make shoes for us, but every stitch and thread in the shoes she made for me is full of love and concentrated motherly love.