Repairing Tent Velcro

Written By: Brittany McCrigler
  • Comments: 1
Repairing Tent Velcro

Difficulty

Easy

Steps

7

Time Required

5 - 10 minutes

Introduction

A loose piece of velcro can leave your tent prey to the wind. Sew it back on using a whip stitch.

While you can glue a piece of velcro back into place, some adhesives may cause the tent material to become brittle and tear. Sewing is a simple alternative.

In addition to velcro, this procedure works for sewing almost any other fabric component of the tent back into place.

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    • Align the two pieces of material you will be stitching together.

    • Thread your needle and tie a knot in the end of the thread.

    • We'll use a bright-colored thread for better contrast, but you may want to select a thread that matches the color of your fabric.

    • Drive the needle into the bottom layer of material from the back side.

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    • Pull the needle through the bottom layer of material.

    • Pull the thread taut.

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    • Drive the needle down through the top and bottom layers of fabric, close to where the needle came up.

    • The distance between where the needle comes up and goes down will be your stitch length. The smaller the stitch length, the more stitches required—and the stronger the seam.

    • Pull the thread taut on the backside of the bottom material.

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    • Continue bringing the needle up and down through both layers of fabric, as in steps 2 and 3 of this guide, working your way around the material.

    • If you are using this stitch as a repair where a stitch already exists, be sure to overlap the existing stitching by several stitches to help prevent it from unraveling.

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    • For the final stitch, come up from the back of the bottom material once again.

    • Draw the needle between the two layers of material through the stitch closest to where the needle came up.

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    • Slowly start to pull the thread taut. As you pull, you will see a loop form.

    • Draw the needle through the loop.

    • Pull the thread taut, forming a knot.

    • Repeat the process of driving the needle up from behind, drawing it through the stitch, and pulling it through the loop as described in steps 5 and 6 of this guide one more time.

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    • Ensure that the stitches are tight.

    • Cut any remaining thread, and admire your handiwork.

Author

Brittany McCrigler

Member since: 05/03/12

88913 Reputation

One comment

If you remembered to pack a needle, but forgot a spool of thread, and a field repair is in order: go see whether you packed any dental floss. If so, you have some hardy thread indeed, and if you bought the green minty kind, you may discover a whiff of mint now and again emanating from your repair site. I try to remember to buy the old string type of floss rather than the newer kind with flat bits, but if your needle has a big enough eye, you can thread either sort. Careful now, too thick a needle may give you threading holes larger than you want. If the repair is in a location that may leak, there are a wide variety of different things you can use to seal your sewn repair and enjoy a drier tent interior. As my preference is for canvas tents over nylon, I use beeswax, but I think a silicone spray would nicely seal a repair to nylon.

Brendan -