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

The Perfect Transitional Sweater – Hopefully

22 Sep 2014

Projects

I started knitting this sweater forever and a half ago. It was actually September 17, 2011, and luckily I’m still (more or less) the same size I was 3 years ago. I didn’t use a pattern, but the sweater is a basic top down, raglan sleeve cardigan, with slight waist shaping, stripes, a hood, some last minute ribbing, and a bunch of ends hanging about. I’m hoping it’ll be the perfect transitional sweater. It’s knit on a US 9s, out of Cascade “Greenland.” I couldn’t tell you what the colors are, or even how many balls of yarn I used – the ball bands are long gone. Interestingly, my gauge hasn’t changed all that much in 3 years, but my knitting has gotten noticeably more even. I’m planning a metal zipper for the front. It’s unblocked, because I still need to knit the sleeves, and I’m guessing/hoping that blocking with...

The Self-Made Wardrobe Project Week 7

19 Sep 2014

The Self-Made Wardrobe

It’s the end of week 7, I’m writing this on Day 50, of the Self-Made Wardrobe project, and like last week, I just want some damn pants. I’ve had a weird neck crick much of the week (probably from sleeping funny) so I haven’t gotten a whole lot of knitting or sewing done. However I did get the hardware (button, rivets, zip, etc.) I need. And I ripped open some of the seams of my experimental shorts, so I can futz with the fit, and then fix the pattern. I also finished the knitting on my Versio sweater, and started working on an old unfinished sweater from years ago. But other than that things have been pretty quiet on garment making front. No related posts.

I wonder if I could finish knitting two sweaters this week.

17 Sep 2014

what's in the works

Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on. You can see all of the Wednesday posts here. I finished the hood of my Versio sweater! That’s a close up of the three needle bind off. I just need to weave in all the ends, make some cording, and block it before it’s wearable. My lace shawl knit out of Julie Asselin’s lovely “Merletto” is sailing along with a little help from rewatching Downton Abbey. It’s definitely fall here. Crisp and cool, and desperately making me want a pair of jeans, and a pile of sweaters. So, I picked up and started knitting an ancient unfinished sweater (from my pile of many). It got a hood, and an amazing number of ends, added to it this week. Then I ripped out the bind off at the bottom hem, so I could add ribbing. I’m adding a 4...

Welcome! I'm Holly Chayes.