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?

A personal style coaching and content practice devoted to helping you own and wear your clothes intentionally, instead of being worn by them. Discover your own style guidance, and learn more about the practice of intentional style at WhoWearsWho.com

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

typing isn’t very photogenic and coming back with fresh eyes is all part of the process

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. I’m tired this morning. It’s gloomy outside. I’ve worked on no craft projects this week. And typing isn’t very photogenic. I haven’t figured out how to type & knit (or sew, or embroider) at the same time. And most of my free time this week, was spent sorting through my wardrobe. It turns out, that after leaving your clothes in a drawer for a year, sorting through them is pretty easy. So this week has left me with, a pile of clothes & stuff to go to housingworks, yarn forming into piles – projects at their tentative beginnings, many typed words, many deleted words, and a love affair with the enter key. I thought about not posting this morning. But not working on a project, is part of working on it. Space and distance and rest, coming back with...
Read More

black & white and playing with colors

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. The giant granny square blanket, soon to be cardigan is blocked. Two quick seams, and it’ll stop being a certainly-not-small sized blanket, and be a cardigan. And I’ve spent most of this week playing with colors + embroidering swatches of color. Weeks and weeks (and weeks ago), I asked what things trip you up when you’re planning colorwork projects, or working with color? Since then, I’ve been experimenting and playing around with color, color theory, and how to practice working with colors. Kind of exploring the idea of color theory for knitters (and other crafty types). Going deeper into color theory, than just complimentary colors, and monochromatic color schemes. Pinning down how to translate abstract color theory into real world clothes, projects, and wardrobes, and vise versa. So, I’ve been doing lots of writing, and rewriting, and messy-messing-about-re-re-writing, (and...
Read More

and finished… sort of

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. The crocheting for the giant granny square-soon to be cardigan, is done. Yay! It’s soaking as we speak, so hopefully I’ll have a new cardigan soon. Other than that, I’ve been embroidering and playing around with colors and swatches and general experimentations. No related posts.