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

“Maybe personal style is something that gets remembered” – The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 25

23 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 169 – JANUARY 16th Boring Black Sweater Black Tank Top Black Scarf Black Maxi Skirt with a Slit Black Tights Brown Boots Bead Crochet Bracelet Various Rings I keep meaning to make a second black maxi skirt, but still haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe that’s time to get moved back towards the top of the to-do list. DAY 170 – JANUARY 17th Deconstructed Black Sweater The First of Many Archer Button Up Shirts Black Tank Top Graphic Silk Circle Skirt Black Tights Brown Boots Long Chain Necklace Various Rings I spent most of the weekend at VKLive which was a total blast. Despite how sunny it looks in that photo it was feeeeezing on Saturday, so I’m really glad I had...

knitting, beading & jeans making

21 Jan 2015

what's in the works

Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on. I finished off the neckline of my entirely handspun & handknit sweater. I had originally done an i-cord bind off, but that was rolling unattractively, so it took it out, and worked 3 rounds of seed stitch on a smaller needle, then bound off, and it looks much better. I learned to bead crochet at VKLive this weekend and might have gotten a little bit obsessed. VKLive was a blast – thank you so much to those of you who stopped to say hi. I didn’t take many photos, and (following my Rhinebeck trend) didn’t buy much. I bought the beads that you see in the photo, and a gleener, but that’s it. And I restarted the jeans making experiment. Way back at the very beginning of the self-made wardrobe I experimented a bit with making...

Rosmerta – a new shawl pattern!

20 Jan 2015

Pattern Releases

I sort of sneaked a new shawl pattern up onto Ravelry Friday morning. It’s a crescent shaped shawl with a mesh lattice work pattern, and knit with one skein of Julie Asselin’s “Merletto,” which is 800 yards of a beautifully plump lace weight yarn. Hand dyed yarn and complex stitch patterns usually fight with each other, and can play epic games of tug-and-war if you let them. What do you look at first? The yarn or the stitch work? With this pattern I’m calling a cease fire. The strong diamond & mesh pattern creates lace work that shines, while smooth expanses of stockinette allow the gorgeous yarn & colors to take center stage. Here’s the pattern on Ravelry. I started this pattern way back in August, and am so excited to have the pattern out to you. The name “Rosmerta” was initially inspired by the last name of everyone’s favorite...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.