History of felt:

Wool felt is the earliest known form of textile fabric and played an important part in the life of early man. Felting began in Central and West Asia, about 6000 BC, soon after people started to keep tame sheep and breed the sheep to grow wool. It is believed that the idea of felting wool derived as people observed matted wool on the sheep, and then figured out how to make it themselves.

Throughout Central Asia, where some of the oldest felts have been found, where there weren't enough trees to build out of wood, the Mongols used felt for the walls of their houses, called yurts or gers.


Similarly Turkman nomads made their tents, clothes and floor coverings from the material and it consequently became a significant part of many religious rituals. Brides were seated on white felt during marriage ceremonies and animals were sacrificed on it. It was also believed to have magical properties - Mongolian horsemen would hang felt figures inside their tents to bring good luck and to ward off evil spirits and a felt mattress would protect the sleeper from dangerous snakes and scorpions. Feltmaking was also illustrated as a technical process in Roman times in the mural paintings of the Fuller's House in Pompeii, and Roman soldiers used felt pads as armored vests, felt tunics, felt boots, and felt socks. By about 500 AD, the Vikings, further north, made felt rugs and blankets too.

You make felt by beating wool together until it all knots up and all the little fibers get tangled up with each other. Felt was good at keeping people warm and dry in cold weather, especially when knitting hadn't been invented. Soon people all over Asia and Europe used felt.

It's faster and easier to make a big piece of felt than to spin wool and then weave it into a blanket, and the result is thicker and warmer than a woven blanket, too. To roll the wool, people took wads of raw wool and got it wet and then rubbed it back and forth until the fibers were all meshed with each other.

Mongolians and other Central Asian people sometimes made felt by rolling up wool inside leather skins and having a horse drag the roll around until it was felted. (This can be seen in this video).