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

Spinning Yarn for a Sweater

23 Feb 2015

FOs, The Self-Made Wardrobe Garments

It wasn’t actually too long after I got into knitting that I also took up spinning. There’s something immensely satisfying about knitting with handspun yarn, it’s so much more “alive” than most mill spun yarn. Though unlike knitting and sewing, my spinning mojo seems to come and go more with more frequency. Because of this, I tend to spin accessory quantities of yarn, and I’ve never knit a sweater entirely out of handspun before. *the main exception being the yarn I knit the swatches for the first Shawl Geometry book – that was about 1,000 yards of spindle spun lime green light fingering/heavy lace weight… This sweater started when Michele offloaded a a giant ball of camel colored alpaca fiber on me – I figured it was about 8 oz or so and started spindle spinning it into a 2ply lace weight – which is my favorite yarn to spin...

203 days of handmade clothing – The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 29

20 Feb 2015

The Self-Made Wardrobe

The Self-Made Wardrobe is a project where I only wear garments I’ve made. It’s sort of a year long experiment in getting dressed without clothing labels. DAY 197 – FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13th Deconstructed Sweater Not-So-Straightforward Basic Purple Sweater Black Tank Top Graphic Silk Circle Skirt Black Tights Brown Boots Various Rings I’m still chipping away at my second purple sweater perfect for layering. I’m into the second sleeve, and hoping to steal a little bit of time for it this weekend – but we’ll see how that goes. DAY 198 – SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14th Boring Black Sweater Black Tank Top Black Scarf Graphic Silk Circle Skirt Black Tights Brown Boots Various Rings Each time I wear this sweater I consider making a second lace weight black sweater – and then remember how boring it was to knit – before deciding that (for this year) I can live with only one...

knitting some sleeves and hiding from the weather

18 Feb 2015

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on. One big lump of knitting progress this week. Sleeves! Over the weekend I finished one sleeve of my sweater and started the second sleeve of my second “Perfect for Layering Purple Sweater.” Other than that all of my knitting time has been focused on knitting the sample for a project I won’t be able to show you for awhile. Sad panda. I’m crossing my fingers that I can steal a couple hours to work on that second sleeve some more – maybe this weekend. Meanwhile, I’ve spent most of my time hiding from the cold, wearing multiple pairs of tights, and plotting more sweater knitting. No related posts.

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.