Cargo Mat

By Victoria Kulig

I recently bought a new car, and I use her to transport my dogs and dog training materials all over the place. My car is a hatchback, and the seats fold down nicely giving me an extremely large area of space where I can store my crates and other items for safe traveling

Since I frequently travel with my dogs, I decided to make a cargo cover to prevent the dog hair from taking over the car. This cover had a few basic requirements:

1. It must attract the dog hair. I decided to use fleece for this project; the fabric is a magnet for hair.
2. It must be easy to clean. Fleece is easy enough to wash.
3. It must be waterproof. I figure tarp or some kind of plastic ought to work.
4. It must be easy to put in and remove.

I started by going to Wal-Mart and finding a $4 tarp. It was silver on one side, and blue on the other. It was cheap, plastic, and large. Once I got home, I took it out to the car, folded down my seats, and crawled in there with it. I used a sharpie to outline the basic flooring of my car. Once I had the basic outline, I cut it out.

 

My stencil didn’t come out perfectly even, so I just trimmed it down a little bit to make it more flush.

 

Once it is trimmed down, and you open it up; you should have something that is roughly the size and shape as the cargo area of the car.

Next you’ll need to cut the fleece. I lay mine out on the floor, and lay my tarp over the top, both folded in half.

 

Once the fleece is cut out to match the tarp, pin it all the around with right-sides together to keep it in place while you sew, then sew one continuous seam all the way around - making sure to leave a hole in one corner to turn it right-side out.

Once you have it sewn, if you are anything like me - you’ll have left quite a seam allowance. Go ahead and trim that down to about a quarter of an inch, otherwise it will be very bulky once you turn it right-side out.

Now as I was making this, I was suddenly worried that by sewing into the tarp - I was making it less waterproof since I was perforating it with the needle. I decided to take an extra cautionary step, and use my hot glue gun to go over the seams on the inside. Hopefully this will keep the tarp from tearing.

Once your seams are glued, turn it inside out from that corner hole you left open. To close the hole, just fold the extra fabric inwards and pin it down, then sew it closed.

Now the last step is to basically give it some grip so it will stay put in your car. I used my handy glue gun again, and put out several blobs of glue all over the mat.

 

Once it was dry, I tested this on my laminate floors, and they actually grip pretty well! It didn’t slide around on the surface. Now it’s time to put it in the car.

 

I think T.A.R.D.I.S. gives his paw of approval on the project. It fits my car pretty perfectly, so far it seems to grip pretty well, and it serves its purpose of attracting the dog hair.

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