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

my handspun sweater is done, and my winter coat will soon have pockets

04 Feb 2015

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on. I knit the last couple rows and bound off the shawl I was working on, now it’s sitting next to the couch waiting for a good soak & blocking. I wove in the ends on my handspun sweater. Which was a surprisingly huge number of ends. For some brainless knitting, I pulled out the pockets of my winter coat again. Funnily enough, before I pulled them out of the project bag, I thought that I had an inch of knitting left on the first pocket, but it turns out I have an inch to knit on the second pocket. I don’t remember knitting that second pocket at all. Maybe it was elves? Or maybe I have a magic appearing pocket? So, not a heck of a lot of knitting happened this week, it was mostly finishing...

It’s the halfway point! – The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 26

30 Jan 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 176 – JANUARY 23rd The First of Many Archer Button Up Shirts Black Tank Top Birds & Wheels Flare Skirt Black Tights Bead Crochet Bracelet Various Rings This week marks the halfway point of the project! Yay!!!! I’m thinking now that I’m halfway into this self-made wardrobe year, maybe I should finally come up with some sort of plan for building my wardrobe. But then again, I’ve mostly been winging it so far – and for the most part that has worked out (minus the lack of pants…) – so maybe I’ll just keep winging it for the next 26 weeks. To plan, or not to plan? That is the question (at least for the moment.) DAY 177 – JANUARY 24th Moonstruck Cardigan...

a snowstorm, some knitting, and 1800 yards of thread

28 Jan 2015

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on. First off, the obligatory snowy photo. We got a decent amount of snow (more than ended up on the fire escape) – not nearly as much as other people though. My snowstorm project of choice was the shawl I’m working on. Which included dropping down and re-knitting part of it when I didn’t follow my own pattern. And more bead crochet bracelets. Prior to the blizzard, over the weekend & into Monday, I was sewing a bunch of gigantic pieced together drops for a theater project. The project has already emptied 7 spools of thread (2 not pictured), for a total of 1800 yards of thread – and it’s not finished yet… No related posts.

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.