Side by side
Baize vs Felt
Baize and felt are both dense, napped woolen surfaces with no visible weave, and both turn up on table tops and notice boards, but they are made in fundamentally different ways. Baize is a woven cloth that has been fulled and napped until the weave is hidden. Felt is not woven at all: its fibers are matted directly into a sheet by heat, moisture, and pressure. One is cloth disguised; the other was never cloth in the woven sense.
Baize
No. 138napped, felted woolen · first documented 1500s
Felt
No. 054nonwoven, matted fiber · first documented Antiquity
The differences
| Aspect | Baize | Felt |
|---|---|---|
| How it is made | Woven on a loom, then fulled and the nap raised so the weave disappears. | Fibers matted together directly into a sheet, with no weaving or knitting. |
| Structure | Has an underlying woven grid, hidden but present; cut edges are more stable than raw weave but it is still cloth. | No threads or grid at all; a homogeneous mat. Cut edges never fray. |
| Surface | Smooth, even, slightly directional nap; the classic billiard green. | Dense, flat, non-directional; can be very thick or very thin. |
| Typical use | Card and billiard tables, pinboards, the green baize door. | Hats, crafts, gaskets, padding, piano hammers, banner letters. |
Which to choose
If the dense napped surface is a woven cloth with its weave fulled out of sight, it is baize. If it is a matted sheet with no weave at all, it is felt. Both are woolen and both can be table-green, but only felt is made without ever being woven.
Common questions
- Is billiard cloth baize or felt?
- Traditionally it is baize, a woven and fulled wool, even though it is often loosely called felt. True felt is non-woven, while baize is a woven cloth finished so the weave is hidden, which is what gives a good table its smooth, slightly directional nap.
- What is the difference in how they are made?
- Baize starts as a woven cloth and is then fulled and napped. Felt is never woven; its fibers are matted directly into a sheet by heat, moisture, and agitation. So baize has a hidden woven structure and felt has none.
- Which frays when cut?
- Felt does not fray at all, because it has no threads to unravel. Baize frays less than ordinary cloth because it is fulled, but it still has an underlying weave and so is less stable at a raw edge than felt.