Skilling Up Materia - Not just Exp?

I'm not much of a forum person but I'm wondering if someone else saw this as well:

I recently took up fishing and fished up some low level Grade I fish (to turn into shards). The recipe cap to turn them into shards were only Alchemy level 1. My Alchemy is @36. Needless to say, I didn't get any experience turning these fish into shards.

But then, I see in my logs that my Dated Canvas Shortgloves + 1 were ready to turn into materia.

I thought that gaining experience points were the only way to be able to convert materia. Has anyone else seen this before? Maybe there's more to skilling up for materia.

I would say that the gear gains whatever experience points you WOULD have gotten for defeating a monster or crafting an item if you were at that level.

Your class doesn't get the EXP because your too high.
Your gear gets the spiritbond because it doesn't matter what level you are.