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Unlike the colorful, inexpensive craft felt that we're used to using in modern craft projects, or the green felt material that may line your pool table, felt cloth was once a product far more important to everyday life. As far back as 700 BC, horsemen in the Siberian Tlai mountains were using felting wool from crushed wool fibers to produce felted fabric used for saddles, tent cloth and clothing. Produced without weaving, water-resistant, and an extremely durable form of cloth, felt material would have been a staple of harsh winter life.
In the West, so the legend goes, St. Clement, who was later to become the fourth bishop of Rome, "invented" felt cloth by accident after he stuffed his sandals with flax fibers to make them more comfortable. After wearing them for a day and seeing that the fibers had knit into an unwoven cloth, felt material became more than a happy accident- the clergyman turned it into a product, implementing a more systematic felting process after he became Bishop and then a genuine felt textile.
Felt cloth went on to be produced industrially for many purposes, but none ever became so popular as its use in hats, where the it's wool fibers provided superior insulation, its malleability allowed it to be shaped using a hat form, and its ability to be dyed, made it into a fashionable, color wool fabric. Felt hats eventually become an entire industry, with hatters in the early part of the 19th century who would hand sew their hats with a felting needle, and then as the industrial revolution emerged, began to machine sew them. One of the more interesting historical revelations that's come to light about these trades people, is that during the 19th and early 20th century, as a direct result of the mercury compound that was being used to treat hat fabric , felt wool was in fact toxic and was literally, like Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter, causing dementia among the hat makers.
Not to worry though. Mercury was banned from the felting process by the Unites States Public Health Service in 1941, so while you may want to wipe the pool chalk off your fingers lest you smudge your jacket, or open the windows a bit if your craft project calls for an acrylic spray, you won't find any downsides to the green felt fabric that you buy for your billiard furniture, the black felt material that you buy for your cabinets, or that single cheerful piece of red felt cloth that brings out the artistic potential in your child.
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