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

Knit like the wind. Rest.

29 Oct 2013

thoughts & things

I know many people do, but I don’t knit every day. There was definitely a period of time where I did knit every single day, but it doesn’t fit my life right now. I prefer knitting for huge chunks of time, and then not knitting for a couple days. Knit like the wind. Rest. Knit like the wind. Rest. I like being able to see the leaps of progress. And when I try knitting for short periods every day I loose interest in my project very quickly. Maybe I prefer knitting in large chunks because I knit shawls, and knitting a shawl 15 minutes at a time takes forever. Or maybe I knit shawls because I prefer knitting in large chunks of time. And if you have to start a new project every time you sit down to knit, instant gratification projects are a little too instant. There are still...

changing up the color sequence

11 Sep 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. I’ve been focusing on the big non easter egg colored lace blob this week. Which totally paid off because I finished this section of the shawl!!! Wheee! Finishing this section means changing up the color sequence. I’m not exactly sure what it’ll be yet, but I’ll play around with a couple options and come up with something or other. The green side to side triangle got a couple more rows since last week but not a whole lot of attention. If you’d like more WIP Wednesday posts, from other bloggers, visit Tami’s blog. No related posts.

new projects are distracting

04 Sep 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. This week had one really good knitting evening, and then a couple hours scattered here and there throughout the rest of the week. If I had spent that one evening working on the-not-easter-eggy-shawl I’d probably be done with this section of it and on a different striping sequence. But I didn’t. I started something new instead… Some garter stitch, some i-cord edging, some tosh merino light, combine to make a very delightful and smooshy shawl. The-Not-Easter-Eggy-Shawl did get some attention. But again, only a little bit here and there for a total 7 rows or so. If you didn’t see it last week: Shawl Geometry II is here! It’s got 19 uncommon...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.