The respective ends of a heavy fabric, for example, a woven dryer fabric or felt each provided with an array of connectong loops are joined with the help of a gap closing device. The gap closing device is detachably attached to the fabric when the latter is supplied to the user. When the fabric is being installed on the machine, the ends are pulled together by the gap closing device so that the arrays of loops are held in proximity and easily intermeshed to form an elongated tubular passage. A pintle wire is inserted into the passage to complete the joint. The gap closing device is then removed. A preferred gap closing device is a slide fastener, of which one tape is detachably attached to each end of the heavy fabric.