I would like to make a contribution to the clarification of these materials, their composition and processing, I hope without obtaining the opposite effect due to my obsession with over-spelling the terms.
I start from the definitions of felt and pannolenci of wikipedia;
Felt:
"Felt is a fabric made of animal hair. It is not a fabric but is produced with the felting of the fibers." ....
Follows the indication on the material that composes it: carded wool or other type of hair; and the explanation of the manufacturing technique.
Felt:
"The lenci cloth is a colored, soft, resistant and light cloth. Not being woven it is not a cloth but a type of felt that is produced with the felting of the fibers."
The traditional composition of the pannolenci that wikipedia reports is: carded sheep wool and mohair goat hair. Follow directions for use, origin ... I do not carry all the text, preferring that you follow the links from where you can read the content directly from the original 'source'.
From these quotes I just want to start and then make some considerations. First we note that the two terms, generically, indicate the same thing; the term 'fabric' is used for both and it is specified that it is a 'non-woven', i.e. non-spun and non-woven fibers.
We have seen that the term 'cloth', in reality, is incorrect but we continue to use it, meaning in general terms a soft fabric and, in this particular case, easily workable for making dolls, puppets, decorations in general and, often , during the carnival period to quickly create very colorful and bizarre costumes.
Now we see the production and marketing of these materials; as we all know, in recent years natural materials have often been replaced with synthetic materials (of mineral origin, but also of vegetable origin ...), this fate has also touched felt (while continuing to keep the same name), therefore on the market we find wool felt and synthetic felt; the same thing can not be said of the felt, on the market it is often found in polyester or polyester and viscose blend. It is very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to find felt made exclusively of natural fibers like the original Lenci cloth.
The felt has a thickness that can vary from 1 to 2 mm, and is a soft fabric; there are thin and more rigid sheets on the market, in these cases I think the term felt is more suitable and not pannolenci.
Felt can be found on the market with different types of composition: entirely in wool, in wool with different percentages of synthetic material (in some cases it is called mouldable felt), finally entirely synthetic. It can be more or less thick, more or less soft; the wool felt is always softer, the synthetic one is both flexible and more rigid but compared to the wool one it is however less soft and rougher to the touch.
The choice of one or the other type depends on the object, the destination, our preferences ...
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