Beading (Manek) Tutorial – Part 4: How To Take Measurement On Your Foot
July 24, 2009
Continue from Part 3: Interior Beading
Once you have the shoes faces filled up with the beads pattern, you are ready to have them made into a nice pair of Peranakan Kasut Manek (beaded shoes). If you have a local shoe-maker who knows how to make Peranakan Kasut Manek (beaded shoes), you can always get them to measure your feet. If you can’t find a shop that you can personally go there to have your feet measured, you can always follow this tutorial to trace out you feet, get the size and send it to the Peranakan Kasut Manek maker.
Basically, all you need to measure ….
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Beading (Manek) Tutorial – Part 3: Interior Beading
July 20, 2009
Continue from Part 2: Border Beading
After you have finished your border beading, you can go ahead to fill up your shoes face with your chosen pattern. The photo below shows you an example of my design on a thong style sandal which I have not completed when I took the photo.
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Beading (Manek) Tutorial – Part 2: Border Beading
June 21, 2009
Continue from Part 1: Preparing The Frame & Canvas
After having your frame and canvas prepared, shoes-face traced out, the next step is to sew a stretch of beads along the shoes-face outline like the picture shown below.
You need:
1. Japanese seed beads size 15/0 for the border
2. Very fine needle so that it can go through the hole of the seed bead
3. White color quilting thread
4. Needle threader (The needle’s eye is so small that you will appreciate to have this threader in hand 
)
The sewing method is to simply adapt the technique ….
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Beading (Manek) Tutorial – Part 1: Preparing The Frame& Canvas
June 18, 2009
Ever since I posted my Kasut Manek (beaded shoes) here, I received several emails from readers around the world asking me how to do beading for it. I decided to post some comprehensive tutorials in this area to cover all-you-need-to-know-how-to-bead-a-Kasut-Manek.
These tutorials are going to split into 4 parts:
- Part 1 – Preparing the frame and canvas
- Part 2 – Border Beading
- Part 3 – Interior Beading
- Part 4 – How to take measurement on your foot
Here we are, at the very beginning among these tutorials: How to prepare your cross-stitch canvas….
You need:
- A wooden frame measuring 11″ x 14″, preferably soft wood like pine so that you can press the thumb pins into it easily.
- A 16-count cross-sticth canvas, white color, 11″ x 14″. Sew a border of 3.5″ width with cotton fabric
- Some thumb pins
- Shoes-face shape of your foot size
- Pencil
If you can’t find the wooden frame, you can always substitute it with ….
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Manek Purse & Shoes
February 6, 2009
I made a frame clutch purse to go with the kasut manek I did weeks ago.
In order to make the purse look more girlie, I added some yo-yo flowers onto it. The yo-yo flowers are made by using Clover quick Yo-yo flower maker.These Yo-yo flowers are easy to make, just follow the instructions which come with the tool. Basically it consists of two pieces of plastic parts, a tray and a disc. Fit the disc into the tray, sandwiching a piece of fabric between the two pieces. Sew according to the instruction, remove the tray and disc, pull the string and gather up the fabric to form a flower, tie the string and stitch into the bag. That’s it, pretty easy to make a beautiful flower in just a couple of minutes. May be I should demostrate it in my future tutorial section.
The method to make the leaf is even easier than the flower, just fold a round piece of fabric into quarter fold and stitch the end side of it, pull the string and gather the fabric, taadaa… a leaf is formed.
I hope the instructions aren’t too confusing. Please leave some comments and questions should you have any, I would love to share as much as possible. I hope I have inspired my readers to get into crafting!!!
***Update***
I developed a step by step tutorial for manek shoes beading:
Kasut Manek (Beaded Shoes)
January 8, 2009
Finally, I finished my second pair of Kasut Manek. It has been the most eye-straining project I have done. Average people take about 2 weeks, even months to complete but I took about 12 days (working throughtout day and night). I did my first pair about 9 years ago for my wedding, unfortunately it was stolen during a break-in.The manek or beads I used is Size 15 Japanese Seedbeads. I used 7 colours: white, sliverlined blue, yellow, sliverlined yellow, opaque green, opaque chartreuse and black. There are manek shoes made from bigger beads, size 11 but personally I prefer the smaller size as it makes the pattern look finer and better.
First of all, clamp a 16-count cross-stitch cloth onto a rectangular frame, trace an outline of the shoes cover of the pattern and size you want (I got it from the shoes-maker who is going to do the final part of the shoes). Start of with sewing the top and bottom outline (blue colour beads in my picture shown below). Next, start sewing the beads from the center of the pattern. The bead should be sewn in diagonal direction on a square of the cross-stitch cloth. Pick one bead into the needle for every square you sew. 
Upon finishing, you can give your manek shoes cover (shown above) to your shoes-maker to attach the sole and heel in order to complete the kasut manek. Choose the colour you prefer for the sole and heel. I used blue for the sole and white for the heel. The shoes-maker will need to measure your foot in order to perfectly fit your feet. If you can’t present yourself there, you can trace your foot outline on a paper and measure the width of the widest part across the upper arch of your feet. Some shoes-makers will want you to come again to fit the shoes before he nails and fixes it permanently.
***Update***
I developed a step by step tutorial for manek shoes beading:
