Holly Chayes

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.

This online space has been around in one form or another since 2010, it focuses on making, creativity and living a curious life, plus a lot of clothing.

Some of the projects I've worked on in the past 10+ years include...

Talking About Clothes with Holly Chayes

An interview podcast that's all about clothing (and also, not *really* about clothing at all). Find all the details and listen to conversations about comfort, style, change and shopping here. Or search for Talking About Clothes with Holly Chayes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Who Wears Who?

The Self-Made Wardrobe Project

Predecessor to Who Wears Who, a year-long challenge in 2014/2015 where I only wore clothes I made. That year would have been a lot easier if the clothes had magically made themselves. Learn more about The Self-Made Wardrobe Project and explore the archives here.

The Shawl Geometry Book Series

Enough shawl shapes to keep you knitting for a lifetime. A multi-year exploration of math, shape and space in knitting, where I documented traditional shawl shaping, and iterated on those traditions to create new recipes of shawl shaping. Ultimately this lead to 75+ shapes, and 400+ pages of common and uncommon shawl shaping instructions. This project was inspired by a dozen individual shawl designs, each encapsulating a love of geometric lace design. You can find The Shawl Geometry Series here.

Thank you for being here with me. –Holly

a skirt, a shawl, a sweater, and a dress

27 Aug 2014

what's in the works

Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on. You can see all of the Wednesday posts here. I added another 10 rows or so to the lace shawl I’m knitting out of Julie Asseline’s beautiful “Merletto” lace weight yarn. I got through the the striped section of the first sleeve on my Versio Sweater. I was planning on working both sleeves simultaneously, by finishing a stripe on one sleeve, then working that same stripe on the second sleeve. But when it came down to it, I went the route that gave me fewer ends to weave in… I’m working on a pleated skirt for The Self-Made Wardrobe Project. I absolutely adore the idea, but I’m hoping it doesn’t look too much like a tablecloth. And I spent about 9 hours this weekend putting my latest jersey wrap dress through the rigors of train travel and it...

New Photos of Old Shawls

25 Aug 2014

Photo shoots

My birthday was a couple weeks ago, and I got a new camera, which found it’s way into my hot little hands Saturday evening. So this morning I grabbed a couple (slightly wrinkled) shawls to play around with it. KORA EIRWEN YUKI GENE TIERNEY I can’t wait to play, explore & experiment some more… All of the knitting patterns for these shawls are available on Ravelry. Kora. Eirwen. Yuki. Gene Tierney. No related posts.

The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 3

22 Aug 2014

The Self-Made Wardrobe

The Self-Made Wardrobe is a project where I only wear garments I’ve made, for one year. You can read more about the project here. It’s the end of Week 3 of the Self-Made Wardrobe Project, and almost the end of August (which means it’s almost fall – eep!) Luckily the weather is still warm, but a couple chilly mornings have definitely turbo fueled my sweater knitting. (The body of my sweater is done – yay!) And I’m starting to think ahead towards cushy cozy sweaters, skirts with tights, and my fall through winter staple – jeans… My current plan is to finish the sweater I’m working on, whip out some more tank tops, maybe make another skirt or two, and then turn my attention to making some jeans. That way I can focus on making jeans, without worrying about having nothing to wear. Yesterday, I whipped up the world’s simplest...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.