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

granny squares & books

22 Jul 2015

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on. What I’m Working On… : after a year intensely thinking about what I’m making and trying to finish projects quickly – I’m loving lazily working on granny square projects that will be draped into something in the future, but for now, just need to be crocheted. : and when it’s too muggy to contemplate touching yarn, I’m reading up on color theory & history, and working on writing the first draft of a ebook about color. No related posts.

Finished: Cascading Flowers Maxi Skirt

21 Jul 2015

FOs, The Self-Made Wardrobe Garments

This is one of the earliest pieces of my self-made wardrobe, right up there with my blue kimono. If you were going to embark on any sort of me-made/self-made/hand-made wardrobe adventure – I would suggest either working your way up to it, or giving yourself lots and lots of preparation time, which is a perfect case of “do what I say, not what I do” (because that type of advice always works so well…) If you don’t give yourself enough prep time (or you spend you prep time tangled up, and not really sure what to make), you’ll probably end up in a couple situations with nothing to wear (kind of literally). There were plenty of mornings at the beginning of this project where I woke up, had nothing to wear, and scrambled to make something in time to wear to whatever I needed to do outside my apartment that...

To Read Over Coffee #5

18 Jul 2015

To Read Over Coffee

A collection of links from the past few weeks that I think are interesting/amusing/educational/insightful enough to read/watch/listen & think about over a cup of coffee. (Everything falls into the “making” category this week, so I made a couple sub-sections.) Make In the realm of ‘crochet as art’ Caitlin McCormack’s beautifully macabre pieces. A beautiful description about the process and care that goes into spinning & knitting A’Nead’s cobweb weight knitwear. About Making I love this sneak peak of a knit-print fabric from The Knitting Goddess. “Gratitude is the Attitude” from Getting Purly With It. History of Making A brilliant 18th century embroidered bible cover. “The image at the top of today’s blog post is, in many ways, an 18th century equivalent of our facebook covers and digital wallpaper.” from the Smithsonian – “How Singer Won the Sewing Machine War” No related posts.

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.