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

splitting for the neckline of my Lady Bat, and tracking down a lining

08 Jun 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. This week, I focused on knitting away on my Lady Bat sweater, and on the hunt for a lining to line my no-longer-really-an-Anna Maxi Dress. I just split for the front and back of my Lady Bat sweater. The Lady Bat pattern is a sideways sweater construction, so you start your sweater working in the round knitting away on one cuff, and through the batwing sleeve. Then you work back and forth for a couple inches – this creates an opening for the bottom of your sweater. After a couple inches you put half of your stitches on a holder, and work flat for the other half – this creates the front (or back) of your sweater. Once the front of your sweater is wide enough, you put your current stitches on a...

sweater knitting, and seeing Manus x Machina

01 Jun 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. I’m a little bit obsessed with how quickly my current sweater project is knitting up. Sometimes I forget that knitting a sweater on size 7 (4.5mm) needles is much, much faster than knitting one on a size 4 (3.5mm). Add to that, an easy to remember stitch pattern, some striping, plus shortening the sleeves, and I’m almost ready to split for the front & back. Apart from knitting away on my sweater project, most of my time this week has been spent in front of the computer. Luckily a friend is visiting from out of town, and so we took yesterday afternoon to visit the Met’s current costume exhibit – “Manus x Machina” – which is over the top stunning, and explores the relationship between handwork & machine work in creating clothing (both...

a tale of two bodices – Ditching & Rethinking the plan for my Anna Maxi Dress from By Hand London

29 May 2016

Flourishing Wardrobes, Style, thoughts & things

Rethinking the dress I realized a couple weeks ago (while I was asking and answering “why am I sick of all my clothing?”) that I really didn’t want to make an Anna Maxi Dress from By Hand London. I mean I did/do. And at the same time, I really don’t. It is true that I want to make a couple maxi dresses as part of my summer wardrobe infusion. And it is also true that I don’t really/often “do dresses.” I was initially attracted to the Anna Maxi Dress because there aren’t a whole lot of independent maxi dress patterns, and also it seems to look good on everyone who’s made it. But I kind of overlooked the fact that I highly doubt I’d enjoy wearing the top half of that dress. On me – I don’t like dresses hitting at my natural waist, or high necklines. Luckily I figured...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.