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

The first 8 days of the self-made wardrobe.

08 Aug 2014

The Self-Made Wardrobe

The Self-Made Wardrobe is a project where I wear only self-made garments, for one year. It has two rules: 1. undergarments & accessories don’t count. 2. if it feels like cheating, it probably is. You can read more about the project here. And see past updates here. I’m sure this won’t be the last week I heavily favor one particular garment. But I definitely need to make more maxi skirts – they’re just so easy to throw on. (And figure out some new lighting – but that’s less easy.) No related posts.

I’m knitting again!

06 Aug 2014

what's in the works

I’m knitting!!! Sure, it’s not a lot of knitting, but it’s something. And after weeks of no knitting – it feels amazing! I’m swatching for a new sweater, Versio, by Ankestrick Designs, in three lace weight yarns, Fiber Space’s ‘Scrumptious,’ Sweet Georgia’s ‘Merino Lace,’ and Julie Aselin’s ‘Merletto.’ Getting gauge is proving challenging (mostly because I’m holding two strands together, instead of just one) and I’m very close to saying “fuck it” and reworking the pattern to make it work with my gauge, but I have one more swatch on the needles that may give me the correct gauge. Fingers crossed. I’ve also done some spinning. I pulled out the 100% alpaca that I started spinning 3 (!) weeks ago. Spinning a little here, and a little there. Mostly when I haven’t felt like futzing with getting gauge on my sweater. The apartment is sloooooooowly coming back together, I’m hoping...

What’s the difference between knit and woven fabric?

04 Aug 2014

Tips & Tricks

This post was originally posted on the self-made wardrobe project’s old blog, but I thought you might find it interesting. What’s the difference between knit fabric and woven fabric? Knitted fabrics (knits) are made by being knit. Woven fabrics (wovens) are made by being woven. (I’ve always assumed that’s where the names all came from, but I’m not sure which came first.) Both are creating using yarn (fluffy, soft string) or thread (thinner/finer than yarn). In fact most fabrics are created using either yarn or thread. Knitting is where you take a single length of yarn, and use it to create a row of loops, and then another row of loops on top of that, etc. The loops are called stitches (not to be confused with a stitch in sewing), and you knit using needles. The needles are used to hold and manipulate the stitches (loops). How you manipulate those...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.