^
ah compressed and formed felt. still used today to make cowboy hats. at least we know that during the time of jason and the argonauts, sheep fleece was already used in gold mining in asia minor, and the method is still applied today.
Felting is still used for whole garments in some cases - I remember reading a National Geographic article about nomadic people of Mongolia making felt by spreading tufts of raw fleece onto a big sheet of leather, then wetting it and rolling it (Swiss roll style) around a pole which was then dragged across rough ground behind a horse. The bouncing and beating compressed the fleece into thick, greasy felt which could then be used for cloaks (Kepenek) and tents (yurt).
As far as anyone can tell, crocheting is a much younger craft than knitting, actually. Strangely to many, because crochet such a simple and flexible technique, there is no reference to anything matching the description of crochet before the early 19th century, nor has any older archaeological specimen of crocheted fabric ever been found.
Sometimes when I’m making something in crochet or knit, I truly wonder at human ingenuity. I mean you take a string, you twist it back on itself just so, and in a bit you have clothes! How cool is that!
Mangetout In “Farmer Boy” Alonzo Wilder describes his mother weaving wool, and felting it into big sheets to be cut for clothing.
I’m not sure if knitted garments could as easily survive the harsh fulling process as woven fabrics could. Certainly *sprang *was used for various netting items, not clothes. Same with *naelbinding *- used for socks, not so much for cloaks.
Do we know if it was originally a man skill or a woman skill?
This argument might make sense if e.g. the Gaels didn’t typically wear trews *before *they took to kilts. Did they lose the knack of sewing?
And most cold places where people wore cloaks, they wore hose or some sort of fitted legging. We’ve been sewing leg coverings since the stone ages.Roman soldiers weren’t particularly special people. They wore trousers when they were too cold.
well, if you read harry potter, mrs. weasley knits her kids new sweaters every year. in iceland, they make new ones every year. but that’s not to say those knitted uppers don’t last. they do. some women don’t even bother to spin the wool: just twist a corner of the skein with thumb and forefinger and the whole thing turns into a ball of yarn.
Yeah, but believe me, I’d much rather wear my fulled wool cloak than my Fairisle when it’s really cold and pissing down.
Thanks, WhyNot! 
That’s a very interesting site. 
I’m constantly amazed at the things that can be learned here at the SDMB. 
IMHO, the SDMB is* without a doubt*, one of the coolest sites on the Internet!
Actually, it’s very easy to felt knitted or crocheted items. All it takes is very hot water and agitation. Because the felting procedure shrinks the item, it must be made 40% larger than the intended fitted product.
For making large sheets of felted fabric for cutting, surely weaving is faster though.
Felting is not synonymous with fulling, though. Fullingwas quite a vigorous, physical process, much more so than just agitation.
Actually it’d be easiest just to make felt from unwoven wool, like the Mongols did.
Re: Weaving requiring more equipment than knitting>
True to a degree, but the simplest weaving looms are very, very low tech.
A beam hanging up (IE, thick branch of a tree), some string, and some weight at the bottom (rocks for each string, or another beam that all the strings tie to) are all that is necessary to build a vertical loom such as is used for rugs and tapestries in many countries still.
A back strap loom is just a few sticks and some string, with the far end of the warp strings tied around a post or tree.
A frame loom is not much fancier, just a rectangular frame with some nails or pegs across the top and bottom.
A woman’s skill, if you ask Freud, “based on an unconcious imitation of the way in which, at puberty, her matted pubic hair came to conceal her deficient genitals.”
But, you know… That’s Freud. He would say a thing like that, wouldn’t he?
I used a term incorrectly (felting referrs to transforming raw fleece into fabric, while fulling refers to applying the process to items made of yarn) but you are quite mistaken that there is any obstacle to fulling knitted garments. There is no reason a knitted object cannot be fulled. It is not as violent as process as you are making it out to be; it really depends on the fiber. Many fibers full very, very easily, to the point where if you knit a sock out of many wools, it will become fulled just by wearing it. Many people have accidentally fulled a sweater by putting it through a washing machine or dryer, where the heat and tumbling is more than sufficient to accomplish the job.
The urine or fuller’s Earth was a cleaning agent, and not a direct part of the of the fulling process. The fulling was completed by trampling/stomping/agitation, as I stated. It is not destructive on knitting, except of course for lacework or other delicate “airy” handwork.
However, as I also stated, it is also obvious to me that weaving large pieces of cloth for fulling, then cutting the fabric to need, is far more efficient than knitting a garment then fulling it. In addition to weaving being faster, you can never be 100% sure of how a made garment will shrink in the process.
In the Middle Ages, with wool, it definitely was a violent process.
But your contention, that Europeans did not use knitting because knitted garments could not survive the fulling process, is wrong.
Actually, some time ago (last year?) I noticed the latest “fad” in wool stores is specially “felt-wool” where you knit an overlarge glove/ small purse/ sock and then felt it in your washing machine. This is funny because for decades, sheep’s wool treated so you could wash it in the specially soft wool cycle of your washing machine (instead of by hand, which is a bother) was the big invention in making woolen clothes (knitted and bought) a useful garment again instead of a pain; and now things are going opposite again, to sell specially untreated wool plus all new instruction books, because obviously you can’t simply use normal instructions and make things 20-30% bigger, no, spend money buying new stuff! 
Knitted garments could not survive the fulling process as it was practiced then and there.
I do not believe you are correct at all. My experience tells me there is absolutely no reason knitted garments could not survive the process, but a great many reasons why weaving is more efficient for the purpose of creating fulled fabric. I wonder what experience or knowledge tells you otherwise? Or why that statement, if true, is in any way significant to the adoption or non-adoption of knitwear? Most woolen knitting, historically, is not fulled, but is water repellant and insulating of its own accord.
Your experience as a modern knitter? What’s that got to do with anything? Do you routinely soak your knitting in stale urin, stomp on it and then stretch it between hooks?
The experience of owning multiple handknitted jerseys that all unravelled as soon as one thread was loose. That includes heavy, lanolin-rich arans.
That and I’ve visited a couple of museum mills in the UK, from what the exhibits show the process was not gentle.
Because fulling was routine. It was what you did to woolen cloth to clean it.
I’m sure there are *multiple *reasons for the non-adoption of knitting for general clothing, actually. Guild politics, fashions, etc. I just think that the pre-existence of fulled cloth before the introduction of knitting means there wasn’t a niche for knitted garments, and that knitted garments couldn’t replace that because they weren’t up to the harsh medieval fulling methods.
Not as much as fulled wovens, though. Knit jerseys are a comparatively modern development.