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

One More Shawl?

06 Dec 2012

what's in the works, WIP Wednesdays

Can I finish one more shawl in 2012? I’m not sure how I’m doing with the goal of finishing 12 shawls in 2012. I get the feeling it’s not going great, but maybe I can still add one more to the pile. The yarn is Anzula cloud in the colorway “boysenberry,” knit on US size 5s (3.75 mm) needles. The shape is going to be a larger version of this swatch, with lace in the center section, and a large lace border. I’ve been working on a series of swatches demonstrating different types of shawl construction. Mostly just so that I could have a library of them for reference, but it’s occurred to me that they would also make for a great blog post about different shawl constructions. Would anyone be interested? If so, leave a comment, email me, find me on Ravelry or Twitter and let me know. So,...

WIP Wednesday: Keeping it all in the Air

14 Nov 2012

what's in the works, WIP Wednesdays

I’ve never really been a monogamous crafter, I always have multiple projects going on. I like being able to pick up and put down projects as needed. If I’m stuck I like being able to put that project aside for a bit, or even if I’m not specifically stuck I can bounce from one project to another. Of course there are times when I like sitting down and focusing intensely on one thing. But even when I’m focused one project there’s always at least three or four other things happening in the background. The problem with this method of course is keeping track of it all. Most of the time I’m pretty good at it, there are lots of lists, and post-it notes involved, but generally everything gets done in a timely enough manner. Every once in awhile though something slips through, I’ll put a project down and forget to...

Kora

13 Nov 2012

Pattern Releases

Kora is now available for purchase as a download, for $6.00 either on Ravelry, or directly through the blog … buy now This shawl came out of my desire for a simple project that didn’t take much thought and that would travel well. So I designed a shawl that would combine large sections of garter stitch with smaller portions of simple lace patterning. The combination of cushy garter stitch and simple lace make for relaxing knitting and a cozy finished object. Knit in one piece from the top down, this shawl begins by casting on 12 stitches at the back of the neck and increasing eight stitches every other row to shape the shawl into a circle. But the fact that the piece is knit back and forth means that there is a slit from what would be the very center of the circle to the outer hem. This construction...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.