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

Introducing the Self-Made Wardrobe

19 May 2014

General Stuffs, Upcoming Projects

I want to tell you about a kind of crazypants, new project I’m doing. I mentioned it in Friday’s finished object post, but I want to tell you more about it. I am going to wear an entirely self-made wardrobe for an entire year. That means, for a year, I’m going to only be wearing clothes I’ve made. Yea, only clothes I’ve made. For an entire year. I said it was a little crazypants, didn’t I? The project is called The Self-Made Wardrobe, and it’s got it’s own blog over at SelfMadeWardrobe.com, where I’ll be posting all about making clothes, loving your wardrobe, fashion, identity, and wearing things we love, along with the clothes I make, and the clothes I wear. All focused around building a wardrobe to house the world that is me, and all written in a non-shallow, non-fussy way. I’ll also be writing a serial book, all...

FO: The Jade Sweater

16 May 2014

FOs

Pattern: a basic top down yoked tunic Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr. Colorway: “Peacock″ Yardage: one 50g ball, 560 yards Needles: 3.5 mm (US 4s) 24″ circulars Dimensions: 33 inch (84 cm) bust Technically I haven’t washed this yet, so it’s not 100% done, but it’s like 95% done, so I figure it counts. I made this and the dress underneath it as part of The Self-Made Wardrobe, which is a project I’m doing where I only wear clothes I’ve made for an entire year. Yep. So I’m spending this month frantically making clothes, and I’ll start wearing them June 1st. Which is in 2 weeks. eep! You can check out and follow the project here. Remember remember! The price of Shawl Geometry 1 and Shawl Geometry 3 will go up this evening, so if you’ve been thinking about getting either of those books, now would be a good time to get...

binding off and stitch marker liberation

14 May 2014

what's in the works

Managed to finish both projects I was working on last week! Well, almost finish. They still need some finishing, but the knitting is done. The shawl is all bound off, and waiting to be blocked. While the green sweater just needs the neck and sleeves finished off. I know the photo looks almost the same as last week, but I promise the shawl is bound off. I just didn’t grab a picture of it. But binding off does mean I got to liberate all my stitch markers. (yay stitch markers!) I’m starting to get a pile of knitwear that needs finishing, ends woven in and blocking, so hopefully (fingers crossed) I’ll get that done and snap a bunch of finished object photos soon. PS: The price of Shawl Geometry 1 and Shawl Geometry 3 will be increasing by a few dollars on Friday evening. You can read more details here....

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.