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

five more pieces, and then this book is back off my desk

17 Aug 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. intro outro resources cover front/back matter bits & pieces Those are the four big pieces left in the first Shawl Geometry book before it is off my desk and back in the hands of editors & first readers. And that is a good chunk of my to-do list for today and tomorrow. This step is probably my least favorite part of writing/publishing – the last small fiddly bits & pieces that require a lot of focus, and a lot of attention, and a lot of time, but that aren’t at all interesting. But at the same time getting to this point in the process means the project is getting super close to finished. And getting the first of the second edition of the Shawl Geometry Books done is something I’m pretty damn excited...

Edits have taken precedent over sewing this week.

10 Aug 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. Edits have definitely taken precedent over sewing this week. I’ve been working away on the first round of edits for book 2, while my technical editor has been editing book 1. And as happenstance would have it, I finished typing the edits for book 2, on the same day she sent me back the edits from book 1. So the next step is to input my editor’s edits from book 1 – then print book 1 & 2 out and do another round of edits with a pen. This actually bodes really well for my no-longer-really-an-Anna Dress & other summer wardrobe infusion projects. Because spending my day sitting at my desk staring at my computer screen means that the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is sit...

suddenly the project tips, and the finish line is surprisingly close

03 Aug 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. One of the reasons I do these Wednesday touching base/taking stock posts each week is because it gives my the opportunity to notice some of my “patterns.” The things I do without noticing that I do them. And one of the big things that these weekly posts have made me realize is that I either have lots and lots and lots of projects on the needles, or nothing on the needles. There have been very, very weeks where I only had one project to work on.* *there have definitely been weeks where I only worked on one project, but very few where I only had one thing that could be worked on. Sometimes, when I have a lot of projects on the needles (or just “in the works” because it turns out these...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.

Talking About Clothes with Holly Chayes

Who Wears Who?

The Self-Made Wardrobe Project

The Shawl Geometry Book Series

five more pieces, and then this book is back off my desk

Edits have taken precedent over sewing this week.

suddenly the project tips, and the finish line is surprisingly close

About – Holly Chayes

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