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

yarn tangles, writing, and the apartment

23 Jul 2014

what's in the works

No knitting. Sad face. Just ripping apart the apartment. Trying to untangle some yarn. And writing. I miss my knitting… No related posts.

Three and a Half Things to Remember About Frogging

18 Jul 2014

Tips & Tricks

1. it sucks. 2. we all do it. 3. a stitch in time, and all that jazz. 3 1/2. ribbit. ribbit. Ripping out your knitting is never fun. It can sometimes feel freeing, but that doesn’t make it fun. And most of the time watching all those stitches disappear just sucks. (It stings less with experience, but I don’t think it ever totally stops sucking.) It happens to everyone. Sooner or later you’ll need to rip out a chunk of a project Alternatively, you could completely detached yourself from the finished object. (Frogging is generally easier than detaching. But then again, sometimes it’s not.) A stitch in time. Rip off the band aid. Bite the bullet. Etc. If you have that niggling feeling you need to rip out, just do it. Frogging one inch of knitting is a lot less painful than frogging six inches. (If you’re unsure, don’t frog....

shoes, nail polish, a spartan desk, and some spinning

16 Jul 2014

what's in the works

This week has mostly been spent unpacking and starting to puzzle piece the apartment back together. Some highlights: Shoes have taken over my closet, at least they left space for my polka doted hatbox. My, now, oh-so-spartan desk. And a crazy amount of nail polish that I don’t remember amassing. I’ve done no knitting. But I did pull out some fiber and do a little spinning last night. That way there would be something fiber related in this post. This is a beautiful camel colored 100% alpaca top, that I’m spinning into a 2ply lace weight. It was a gift and unfortunately I don’t know the company. But I’m loving working with it. Here’s to more knitting next week. Happy Wednesday! No related posts.

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.