DIY: A Not-So-Chevron Circle Rug

I've been seeing chevron everywhere recently.

Yes, I'm including the recent tribal craze in this category - there are chevrons in there!

So when my good friend and beautiful co-worker Kate showed me this chevron braided rug DIY, I instantly ran to the fabric store. I mean, who needs three rugs in your room when you can have four??

This is what I was aiming for:

And this is what I ended up with:

A braided circle rug with a distinct lack of chevrons. I tried three different ways to get the chevron rug to work, but alas, it was not meant to be. Mostly because I didn't buy enough fabric. Boo. But a circle braided rug is nice too, I suppose. So here's a tutorial!

What you need:
Strips of cotton or whatever fabric scraps you have lying around
Needle
Thread
Scissors

What you do:
1) Braid strips of cotton.

2) Sew them in a spiral pattern. (Since I very loosely braided all of my strips, I had to handsew them all together, which took me waaaaaay longer than I'd care to admit. I'd recommend you braid the strips pretty tightly so you can machine sew them together with a zig-zag stitch)

3) Step on it!

DIY: Leather Chevron Necklace

The best kind of DIY's are the ones you can do in 20 minutes right when you wake up, still in your pajamas. Like this one:

The original inspiration. Not sure where I found this - let me know if it's yours so I can credit it!

And my version of it

What you need:
Leather (or stiff fabric of some kind)
Scissors
Thin chain
Jump rings (or in my case, links off a bigger chain)
Safety pin (or other poking-holes-in-fabric-thing)

I'm in love with this leather - it's so soft! I have tons left over, I need to make more things out of it! 

What you do:
1) Roughly trace out a chevron shape. I really just free-handed it.

2) Cut out three of those chevrons, then attach two jump links to both sides of each one.

 3) Measure and cut a length of chain as long as you want the necklace. Attach the jump links.

I still want to add some small gold (or black?) details at the bottom of the last chevron, but I didn't have anything on hand at the time. Also probably will want some fabric stiffener since I used pretty soft leather. Joann's run this week? Yes.

And just because I know someone will wonder: the woman selling me the fabric in Boston said it was made from recycled bits of real leather. BUT it was only 4.99 a yard, so I'm pretty damn sure its just faux leather.