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

I’m looking for yarn storage ideas. How do you store yarn?

11 Jul 2014

Tips & Tricks

So, part of dealing with bedbugs is having to wash/dry all your clothes & linens (and in my case yarn, fabric, and fiber) on hot, before sealing them all away in plastic bags. The heat kills any bugs that might be living in the fabrics, and once they’re washed you seal them away so they can’t get reinfected before the apartment is treated. In the endless cleaning and packing, I’ve realized a couple things, : You can fit an amazing amount of crap in an apartment. : I have a lot of shoes. And shoes are very hard to pack. : This whole thing is a giant pain in the ass. : And it gives me the chance to reorganize my yarn & fabric. All my yarn and fabric used to live in bins under my bed, but that wasn’t very accessible. Plus now the idea of storing things under...

a week of laundry and chaos

10 Jul 2014

what's in the works

Not a whole lot of knitting this week. Mostly it’s been more laundry and more packing. My living room is a nightmare, but the exterminator came yesterday and treated the apartment, so I can at least start unpacking things soon. It’s amazing how much stuff you can fit into an apartment. But I did get a little bit done. And bonus points for matching the dress I’m wearing. Because the apartment is a mess, and my desk is in the living room (the very center of the chaos) I’ve been working in cafes and parks whenever I get the chance. A little bit of Monday morning writing. (I’m hoping to restart the Self-Made Wardrobe project again – soon!) And some late night pattern writing. Here’s to hoping for more knitting time very soon. No related posts.

Seriously, this shawl is keeping me from going crazy.

02 Jul 2014

what's in the works

Still sick, but feeling a bit better than last week. But I started knitting a new shawl. Yay! It’s a simple half circle (based on the concentric half circle out of Shawl Geometry II), out of the Verdant Gryphon’s Eidos, colorway “fenris.” It’ll be mostly solid stockinette, with some sort of contrasting stripe at the bottom. It’s being perfect mindless knitting, which is exactly what I need right now. Seriously, this shawl is keeping me from going crazy. Because, all of my fabric, the rest of my yarn, and many of my clothes are currently sitting in giant plastic Ziploc bags. That’s because my apartment needs to be treated for bedbugs (eww!) We don’t have a full blown infestation (thankfully), but the exterminator did find some evidence of them, so everything needs to be washed and sealed up, and then the apartment can get treated. (It’s absolutely amazing, how much...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.