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

finishing, restarting, ripping

20 Aug 2014

what's in the works

The body of my Versio sweater is done, and I’m hoping to pick up for the sleeves tonight. My plan is to work them simultaneously, working stripe A on the right sleeve then stripe A on the left sleeve. I’m cutting it close on yardage, and will probably need to pick up a second skein of the black “Forest Hills,” but hopefully I’ll make it. Remember this shawl? From weeks and weeks and weeks ago? It was my main knitting project through the stomach problems, and the bedbug situation. Simple, straight forward, stockinette, half circle. I finally got it back on the needles, and have figured out what I want to do for the bottom edging. yay. And Julie Asselin posted her fall colorways on instagram & in her Ravelry group, so I can show off the beautifulness that is the colorway “Anemone.” I’m working away on this new design...

How many yards/meters of yarn does it take to knit a shawl?

18 Aug 2014

Tips & Tricks

It depends on a lot of factors, but my preference is at least 450-500 yards (411-457 meters) of yarn. You can read about some knitting yardage rules of thumb in “Shawls to Play With.“ Can you knit a shawl with less yardage? Yes. I have. “Wafian” is knit with 420 yards (384 meters) of Tosh Merino Light – a fingering weight yarn – on a US 7 (4.5mm) needle. However those shawls tend to end up on the smaller side. More scarf-like than shawl-like. But I like my shawls on the giant side of huge. That being said, the sky is the limit with shawl yardage. “Tumbling Deco” takes 980 yards (896 meters) of a lace weight yarn. “Eirwen” takes about 1600 yards (1463 meters) of lace weight. “Ingrid’s Baby Bridal Knot” (one of the first lace shawls I ever tried knitting – it didn’t go so well…) calls for...

The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 2

15 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. And see past updates here. I’m trying a different room plus a different photo set up, and liking the results much better than last week’s. Unfortunately this specific set up means I can’t take photos of myself standing up, but it’s easy to use, fast to set up, and something I can live with. I’m going to get a reflector so I can look to my left without my whole face being in shadow, but other than that I’m more or less happy. That being said, you can’t see the clothes to their best advantage, so I’ll be taking photos where you can see the garments and posting those separately. I’m also working away furiously on the sweater I posted about Tuesday, which is a very,...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.