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

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun…

12 May 2014

thoughts & things

“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun, you find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game.” -Marry Poppins (film) “A Spoon Full of Sugar” Naming patterns is, by far, the most challenging part of writing patterns for me. It’s always the last piece I get to, and I’ll often use some sort of characteristic of the shawl as a sort of working title, or short hand, while I’m knitting. So, I’ve been trying to publish a pattern for every letter of the alphabet. A: Anwar. also A-ha, Arrowhead Stole, and Asymmetrical Bluebells. B: Baby’s Magic Blankie and Birds of a Feather. C: Climbing Trellis. (the first pattern I ever published) D: Dragon’s Ruff. E: Eirwen. F: nothing yet! G: Gene Tierney, Ghosts & Mirrors, Gothic Spires, and Gratia. H: nicht! I: Izar and Idril. J: nada! K: Kora. L: Lapidarius. M: Mayur also Mrs....

I’ve been knitting sweaters(!!!)

07 May 2014

what's in the works

sweaters?!?! what?!?! yep. sweaters (plural) the first is almost done. I just need to finish off the armholes and weave in the ends. I’m debating about the color though, they’re really not my colors, and it’s doing some funky pooling so… keep the colors? or dye it? I’m working on the yoke of the second sweater, maybe I’ll finish the yoke this evening? Love this color though, it’s a beautiful jewely green. The yarn is JaggerSpun’s Zephyr (which I loooooove). They call the color “peacock.” I’m still plugging along on this shawl. It feels like I’ve been working on this project forever. But I’m oh-so-slowly making progress. I’m making myself knit at least 2 rows a day on this project, one patterned row and one plain row, which is progress, but the rows have gotten reeeeaaaallllyyyy long. I’m also working on some charts & written instructions, but I know if...

Lets Talk Yarn…

14 Apr 2014

Books

This is an excerpt from Shawls to Play With, a shawl collection that is more than the individual patterns, it’s about bringing more freedom to your knitting. LETS TALK YARN You’re at a yarn shop, wandering around looking at an amazing array of colors and fibers. A skein catches your eye, you pick it off the shelf, and fall in love. Madly, madly in love. Repeat. Before you know it, your basket is full, you’ve checked out, and are on your way home with your haul, including a skein or two of lace weight that you didn’t mean to pick up, but that were too pretty to resist. Those skeins hang around your stash, until you finally do a yarn cleanse and pass them along to a lace knitting friend. Sound familiar? A substantial portion of my stash is lace weight yarn passed along from friends who realized they would...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.