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

knitting by a pool in January

03 Feb 2016

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. KNITTTTTTTTTIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG!!!! (by a pool). (in January). (and then picnicking). (outside). (without freezing). (California has it’s perks). (it’s also got some great yarn & fabric shops). (which is not a perk – it’s a necessity). Of course, there are also botanical gardens & parks & walks & museums & charming shops & stunning street art & cute restaurants & meeting up with amazing people. But I’m suffering from photo overload again this week. So in the mean time, knitting. No related posts.

photos, stories, sharing, and swatching

27 Jan 2016

thoughts & things, what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. I’m pretty sure I spent more time sorting through photos for this post and trying to whittle my selection down under half a dozen – then I’ll spend writing it. I’ve taken hundreds of photos in the past week and a half. Some of them are ending up here, some on Instagram – but mostly they’re organizing themselves into stories & collections. But the problem is, they’re not organizing themselves into chronological stories – the kind of stories that can be told while they’re happening. The photos I’m finding myself taking are organizing themselves into pattern-like stories – patterns in street art, and plant forms, in architecture and color, and funny street signs. These are the kind of stories that can only be told after the fact – when you can get perspective, and see all the dots, before...

handmade clothing, capsule wardrobes, and living out of a suitcase for 10 weeks

21 Jan 2016

Style, thoughts & things

4 bottoms 5 tops 3 dresses 6 “top layers” (sweaters, over-shirts, etc) 2 coats That’s what my suitcase currently contains. (Along with tights, toiletries, undergarments, computer, camera, etc.) Traveling is kind of like a baggage-limit imposed capsule wardrobe experiment. While NYC is bitterly cold, I’m spending the rest of my winter in the Bay Area, and Pacific Northwest, where it may be rainy, but at least it’s above freezing. So, I’ve been dressing out of this suitcase since December 21st (when I moved out of my beloved apartment), and will be dressing out of it at least until I move back to NYC at the beginning of March (and possibly for awhile longer than that). When it’s all packed away in a suitcase, it feels like a very small wardrobe for 10+ weeks. But when I think about it, my self-made wardrobe project wardrobe ended at about 30 pieces by the...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.