Velcro Is Way Out of Sticky Situations
Someday, you’ll replace the grungy shower door in the bathroom and attend to the paint peeling from the dining room ceiling.
Inevitably too the kids will grow up and their quest for a corner of privacy in the room they share will be history.
Until then, a quick fix is in order.
Hook-and-loop tape, best known under the trade name of Velcro, can help in covering myriad household eyesores. It also can support fabric for a temporary room divider. Although the fixes are for now, the tape is long-lasting.
Maureen Klein of Jamesport, N.Y., experimented with the tape recently in developing projects for a home decorating magazine. One success was a skirted dressing table made from a pair of file cabinets, a plastic laminate top and a bedsheet.
She sewed the loop side of the tape to the top edge of the fabric skirt and glued the hook side to the edge of the laminate top. She used the same sew and glue technique for a dust ruffle and canopy for a bed.
“There are nondecorative uses for hook-and-loop tape too,” Klein said. “You can use patches sold in various sizes to keep tools and brooms handy on a wall and the remote control on the side of the TV cabinet.”
The concept of hook-and-loop tape seems obvious, but it wasn’t developed until about 40 years ago. Georges de Mestral, a Swiss inventor, noticed that burrs caught on his trousers during a walk in the woods could be pulled off without damaging the fabric. Under a microscope, he saw that the burrs had very fine hooks that easily latched onto woven fabrics and knits.
De Mestral coined the word Velcro from the first syllables of velvet--representing the loops--and of crochet, the French word for hook. He took out a patent in 1955. It has since expired, and other manufacturers now market similar products.
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The first commercial application of Velcro was to replace hooks and eyes, snaps and buttons on apparel. One of the most practical is to replace shoelaces on children’s sneakers. That idea emerged in the early 1980s, about the same time that home decorating latched on to Velcro as a substitute for zippers on pillow covers.
Manny Congedo, a national sales manager for Velcro USA Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., says Velcro’s use in home decorating and crafts has risen dramatically in the past five years, but he declined to give figures.
The tape, in white, black, beige, navy or red, is sold in packages at notions counters and by the yard at fabric stores. Prices range from 99 cents to $4.50 a yard. Originally, it was machine stitched onto fabric. Iron-on tape and adhesive-backed tape have expanded its uses. Velcro for home sewers is made of nylon. That for outdoor uses combines nylon and plastic to withstand the weather.
One popular product pairs adhesive-backed hook tape and sew-on loop tape in one package for projects such as sink skirts. Another is adhesive patches that can secure items such as a decorative wall tile or a small framed photograph to the wall.
Beyond apparel and home fashion, hook-and-loop fasteners are used in aerospace, automotive, electronics and medical industries. In space, Velcro secured astronauts’ shoes to the cabin floor, for example. Interior trim panels in cars often are attached with Velcro. The fasteners also close surgical gowns and pressure cuffs and even have kept the components of an artificial heart in place.
Velcro retains its fastening ability after washing or dry-cleaning, Klein says, but the hooks can catch on other fabrics. She advises using the hook side on hard surfaces such as walls, window and door frames and floors and the loop side on fabrics. If laundering or dry-cleaning involves both hooks and loops, fasten them together. If the hook side only must be cleaned, cover it with a piece of loop tape from your sewing basket.
A brochure, “Ideas and Accents,” with instructions for a fabric room divider, tented ceiling, bed canopy and fabric panel for a glass shower door is free by writing Velcro Booklet, P.O. Box 6441, Dept. D-1S, Riverton, N.J. 08077-6441.
