From antiquity to the last part of the eighteenth century, the conversion of fibers into materials was a handcraft. Wool fibers may have been the first textile material to be used by man to clothe himself. The felting of wool may have been suggested by the matting that results when pelts are worn with the wool or hair side toward the body; however, it was the spinning of fibers and the weaving of them into cloth that was to have the widest application. Until power-driven machines came into being, spinning was a household industry, and there are still many areas of the world where one can see women carrying a distaff of wool in one hand while twirling the spindle of thread in the other--Indians in the Andes Mountains of South America to cite but one example. Weaving is another craft that is referred to in the earliest literature and one can still watch craftsmen treadling their looms in Ireland and other countries.