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

A yarn (and fabric) tour of the San Francisco Bay Area

07 Mar 2016

Travel

While I came home with a not-insignificant amount of yarn from my 6 week long trip to the west coast, I still didn’t buy yarn at ever yarn shop I visited (that would have definitely required a second suitcase). Between the Bay Area, and Portland, I ended up visiting 15 yarn & fabric shops (plus a handful of bead shops and vintage stores). More than just petting all the yarns & fabrics, I loved having the chance to get a feel for so many different shops in a condensed period of time. I think we all know this if we have a favorite local yarn (or fabric) store, or if you’ve ever bypassed the closest shop to travel to your preferred shop further away, but every shop is different. Sometimes it’s simply a difference in what they carry, but other times it’s something more illusive, it’s the culture, or the...

How much yarn could I fit in my suitcase?

03 Mar 2016

Travel

I just got back from a month and a half in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, and Portland, OR – and while, I’ve never been a huge souvenir buying person, there was no way I could be gone for 6 weeks, visit a multitude of yarn, fabric, vintage & bead stores and come home with nothing. So come home with something I did. 8 skeins of yarn, 4.5 yards of fabric, 3 books, multiple prints, buttons, beads, and a candle (plus a ring that I was busy wearing while taking these photos). Since I knew that I’d end up buying yarn anyhow, I didn’t travel west with any knitting projects. Partly because I knew I’d end up buying yarn there, partly because I’d be gone long enough that any project I brought wouldn’t last for the whole trip, and partly because I didn’t have anything actively on the...

I am definitely not in California anymore

02 Mar 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at. My trip to the left coast of the country ended with a rather surreal day of traveling on Friday. My first flight took off from Oakland before the sun had risen, and my second flight landed in Boston after the sun had set. That, combined with a series of unfortunate events leading to a distinct lack of food until I landed in Boston (a last minute checked bag, construction at LAX, and a fellow passenger’s peanut allergy), means I don’t quite remember Friday – but I do know I got a lot of knitting done. I’m back on the east coast, outside of Boston for a couple days before heading back to NYC. We’ve been having a warm spell for a couple days, but the temperature is supposed to drop, there is still...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.