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

Izar

06 Mar 2014

Pattern Releases

Quirky. Bold. Playful. Graphic. Izar is eight knots and a starburst drawn with lace. A modern, asymmetrical, take on classic celtic knots, Izar will lead you on a journey of twists and turns leaving you with a stunning shawl in the end. The details: Yarn: MC: 840 yards (770 meters), fingering weight CC: 420 yards (385 meters), fingering weight I used The Verdant Gryphon’s Eidos in “Fenris” & “Blinding Polyphemus” Needles: US 5s (3.75mm) 40″ circular Notions: 8 stitch markers; 1 yarn needle Gauge: 18 sts/ 38 rows to 4 in (10cm) in washed and blocked stockinette stitch Dimensions: 38 in (96.5cm) diameter Buy the pattern now. Here on Ravelry. Or here at the Verdant Gryphon. ……… No related posts.

something infinitely charming

05 Mar 2014

what's in the works

Grabbed a picture of a swatch drying on the windowsill. As Gryphon put it “there’s something infinitely charming about this photo.” The never ending bind off is finished. I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, slow but surprisingly stretchy, and took breaks, lots of them. I started the purple & grey shawl late last week and have been obsessed. I’m working on the patterns for this collection of shawls. I helped a friend move this week, and ended up with this vintage TV in the process. In case you missed it I released Wafian last week. And Izar is now on Ravelry. No related posts.

my favorite bind off trick. part 2

04 Mar 2014

Tips & Tricks

My favorite trick for creating a bind off that won’t snap or break, involves increasing right before you bind off. I explained about the basic trick here yesterday. In essence you’re creating a very subtle ruffle that will disappear once you block your shawl. The ratio of stitches to increases (how often you increase) determines how pronounced the ruffle is. Put another way, the more often you increase the more pronounce the ruffle is, the less often you increase more subtle the ruffle is. Yesterday the directions I laid out had 1 increase for every 3 stitches, so your stitch count would increase by one third your original stitch count. Evenly increasing one third of your original stitches works for really well for shawls with curved edges (circles, crescents, half circles, etc.) However for squares, triangles, and other shawls with straight edges I find that increasing by a third gives...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.