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

getting “stuck”

11 Dec 2013

what's in the works, WIP Wednesdays

I’m always working on some project or another, and most weeks I talk about what I’m working on Wednesdays as part of Tami’s WIP Wednesday project. You can see past WIP Wednesdays … right this way. Even though I LOVE blocking, that’s often the place where my shawls get “stuck.” Sometimes I finish a shawl and block it right away, but more often than not, it sits around for a bit. Everything gets blocked eventually, no need to worry about that, but sometimes (many times) shawls just sit around waiting for awhile. I have yet to figure out why this is where I get “stuck” in my knitting. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I block everything on my bed, so I have to get the timing right. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I photograph things in batches, so my brain...

something completely different today

04 Dec 2013

thoughts & things, Tips & Tricks

the magic of popcorn popping time. It takes three and a half minutes to pop a bag of “Pop Secret’s Movie Theater Butter Popcorn.” Three and a half minutes of standing in the kitchen. Surprisingly enough three and a half minutes is enough time to do a lot of things. It’s enough time to put the clean dishes away. Or clean the dirty dishes in the sink. It’s enough time to put away a bag of groceries. Or toss last night’s pizza box. It’s enough time to refill the soap dispenser, take the garbage to the chute, or wash the counter. The key of course being “or.” There’s not enough time to do all of them. Just one of them. And when the microwave beeps, you go on your merry way. With popcorn. The magic of popcorn-popping-time is also the magic of tea-water-boiling-time, and coffee-pot-brewing-time. The microwave beeps, the...

movie marathons don’t hurt knitting progress

20 Nov 2013

Tips & Tricks, what's in the works, WIP Wednesdays

I’m always working on some project or another, and most weeks I talk about what I’m working on Wednesdays as part of Tami’s WIP Wednesday project. You can see past WIP Wednesdays … right this way. When I’m working on a long project or a semi-monotonous* project, I get disheartened when it gets harder to see progress. And I bet I’m not the only one, right? *not necessarily monotonous in a bad way, but a project that is not snap of the fingers instant, and involves lots of one simple stitch (such as garter stitch shawls). I use a couple tricks to keep myself motivated, the easiest and most reliable one being to keep visual track of my progress using row markers. It’s really simple and very motivating. So if I’m feeling unmotivated or trying to knit fast on a deadline, when I sit down to knit I’ll place...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.