Felt Making
Felt which is idiomatically unwoven tissue is made by pressure, humidity and heat. Making felt is based on two properties of wool that is curling and flaking off. When wool is curled in humid heat and its fibers are twisted together the flakes prevent the fibers reopened from each other. As for the history of felt making, no precise idea may be expressed except that the people who lived in Neolithic era and dealt with sheep wool knew felt. The oldest historical document about using felt in Iran is related to the embossed painting dates back to 5000
B.C in Zehab Bridge, showing the king wearing a felt hat. Today, the felt is woven as one-faced or double-faced. In double-faced type, first the desired design is done with colored wool on Canvas, then the beaten wool is put on the tissue, its surface is damped with suds and Canvas is wrapped.
Then a group of men repeatedly rub and wind it by their feet. Having finished the work, the felt tissue is washed and dried in sun. In one-faced felt, all the stages are the same as double faced felt, except that the one-colored wool is spread on Canvas, reopening after it has been rolled and by other colored wools the design is transferred on the ground then the Canvas is rolled and rubbed.
The wool used for felt making is spring wool of lamb with long “fibers. Felt hat is another product of felt, the antiquity of which dates back to the stone engravings of Persepolis Palace. At these ancient engravings, the Medes wore felt hat. This hat is called Khosravi hat. Since in Sassanid era, the king called Khosro wore such a felt hat. The wool which is used for hat is mixed with goat fur and washed with alkali so that its fat is removed. After beating, the wool is put on a hot pan in circle form (two times of the hat size) and during suds process and rubbing it is shaped. Now, two pieces of this wool between which is a cotton small pillow, is overlapped and its edges are joint by rubbing then it is get out from the hollow of the small pillow, then it is rubbed on a wooden frame until the felt hat is shaped. Painting the hat is done with dyestuff after finishing the work. Among the advantages of this craft is producing light weight and yet soft hats.
