Will Chatlosh proves that a crochet hook can do much more than make blankets and stuffed animals. His colorful freeform crochet portraits are full of personality, showing just how expressive yarn can be. In this interview, Will shares how a self-taught hobby grew into a creative career, and why he loves breaking the rules of traditional crochet.
You first learned to crochet at age eleven using YouTube videos. What do you remember about those early days of teaching yourself something stitch by stitch?
I’ll always remember my first project… a stuffed teddy bear tutorial that I followed on YouTube, before I knew how to read a crochet pattern!
Even with access to online resources at the age of 11 or 12, being left-handed gave me a bit of a hard time when it came to learning (and finding out that certain patterns may be reversed as a result).
Before I discovered crochet, I had been drawing for many years, and had a big phase where I was really into origami as well. My grandma showed me how to knit just before I picked up crochet, which I had seen people use to make stuffed animals, which really caught my attention in comparison to knitting.
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I remember spending almost all of my free time crocheting any given day, and I still have so many boxes of little toys I made nearly ten years ago as I continued to grow my skills.
Your portraits feel emotional and alive, almost like paintings made with yarn. What draws you to faces and human expression?
I think that the uniqueness of every single person is really beautiful, and I really try to highlight that by creating a collection of crocheted portraits that are all different in composition, color, and features, but still have some harmony together within my own ‘style’.
I’ve seen so many different styles of crocheted portraits, most commonly designs using a stitch grid and worked in horizontal rows, and I think the way I create my portraits using shapes instead of a grid also allows me to incorporate another, painter-ly sort of depth to a face in a different way.
Beginning to crochet portraits during the pandemic, I think another aspect that drew me to crochet faces was the aspect of human connection during that time.
While crochet isn’t always an activity that people use to find community, I feel that empathy, connection, and community are some of the most important values to me, and having people stop to admire various faces and look closely at my work to gain some inspiration or feeling is really powerful as well.
Your freeform crochet work pushes past traditional patterns. What excites you about working without strict rules?
It has been fun to experiment with each crochet piece that I make as I continue to develop my outside-the-box crochet techniques. I find it exciting to work without strict rules because I’m constantly making my own choices with where I want my stitches.
With almost all of my projects, I end up following a somewhat linear path to finishing a portrait, but they’re almost always crocheted as one piece– I start with some small shape and continue building onto that one until it is finished. Because they’re all one piece, I could choose to rejoin my yarn in so many different areas at any time, which leads me to spend a lot of time thinking out my process as I go.
While I love a project where I can “turn my brain off” and just follow along with something written down, I also have a lot of fun thinking about the facial anatomy and how I can most smoothly create lots of weird shapes all as one piece, while having it look recognizable as a particular person.
Describe your creative space.
My creative space is constantly changing… I’ve honestly moved six times in the last eight years, but am always carrying a couple massive bags of yarn with every move!
I moved from Michigan to New York about four years ago, and living in NYC has meant that I’ve left a lot of my finished artworks and original studio back at my mom’s house, as I’m working with a lot less space. The location that I currently live has my best setup yet, including a couple of desks, some studio lights for photography, and enough extra room for all of my supplies.
My creative space has always also been my living space, but that hasn’t stopped me from moving all of my furniture to lay out a crocheted mural piece I worked on, hanging a giant stuffed octopus from my ceiling, and much more!
Has your relationship with crochet changed as it became both your passion and your career?
My relationship with crochet has changed so drastically over the years. When I first started crocheting, I really didn’t hesitate to pick a project to make, and I don’t think my spark for crochet has ever been as strong as then!
Unfortunately, it really isn’t often anymore that I have a project I can take on-the-go or finish in a day or two– as I’ve slowly turned crochet into a career, the projects I’ve begun to create are pieces that take many weeks or months.
Starting my social media page to showcase my crochet work about 8 years ago had a really strong impact on this change in my pieces… while crochet used to be a hobby or something I did to wind down from the day, I now really separate my downtime and time to crochet.
I honestly really fell in love with the photography aspect of social media as my page grew, and especially now that my projects take longer & I have a larger audience, I view my pieces each as their own statement in some way. I think that really leads me to be more curatorial with planning a piece & spending a lot of time designing before I pick up a crochet hook.
While I do miss the lack of pressure of making a small stuffed animal, I’ve really grown from middle school to now post-college adult life with the development of my crochet, and I think this change is only natural if I’m choosing to focus on my artwork as a career!
Can you walk us through what a normal studio day looks like for you, from the first cup of coffee to the last stitch?
My schedule is never the same week to week, so my best studio days are always a bit unexpected.
I do work full-time at a job that has helped me maintain financial stability post-college and also gives me flexibility to create my art, but it means I don’t always have the most time to do what I love.
With that being said, my ideal studio day starts by catching up on emails or collaborations as I give myself a schedule for the day. Because my studio space is my living space, I think the most beneficial thing for me is a break– leaving my apartment to explore, bike, spend time outside in the early afternoon, which is usually when I’ll make a trip to the yarn store (if needed).
My dedicated work time is always at night, especially on days when I work my day job, but also have work to do on my own projects.
I’m also almost always working on multiple projects at a time, so I like to spend some time doing what I love most (working on a design, drawing, or working on something I can finish), before I pick up my larger projects, where the finish line is very far away.
My biggest project this year has been an 11×13 foot crocheted community mural that I started last November, and has been something I work on at least a few nights a week, continuing to add to the background of the piece after leading a few workshops at different events earlier this year for the project.
I usually work late into the night before giving up. Whether it be a portrait, sewing, or other project, I’m just at my desk for a few hours with some music or a show on in the background.
What’s the most unexpected thing crochet has brought into your life?
I really could have never expected to have a crochet journey like I’ve had when I first began. To have grown a social media presence as a result of my art, to be a featured artist for many events, just two years out of college, and so much more. Especially having created so much as a kid, having done a lot of live events where I can see peoples’ reactions to my work has been so meaningful to me– while I can recognize that I have skills in my field, I didn’t expect to be given such a high level of respect for my work from both people who love to crochet as well as those who’ve never picked up a crochet hook.
The community mural project I’ve discussed earlier propelled me to have a solo exhibition and travel to H&H Cologne this March, where my work was seen by tens of thousands of people, which has probably been the most exciting career accomplishment of mine so far, but I’m already looking towards what’s next!
What’s a material you want to work with someday?
I’d love to do a completely recycled portrait or project– possibly cutting up denim to create a denim yarn or something similar. I’ve previously done a clothing set crocheted entirely from plastic grocery bags, and am really interested to see if I could dye that plastic bag yarn to get a range of colors to work with. I’ve also really been into cyanotype photography art online, and would love to incorporate that into my crochet somehow, someday.
Do you have a favorite yarn texture?
Honestly probably the expensive stuff, even though I don’t typically work with it. Mohair/wool feels and looks so nice, but I also recently received a leather-looking yarn (I’m not sure what the fiber content is, it may be some form of plastic), but am really looking forward to working on something with that.
Where can people see your work?
My work is most easily accessible on Instagram @wccrochet or on my website wc-crochet.com! I have some of my own small crochet patterns on both Ravelry and Etsy under wccrochet as well.
The crochet mural piece I’ve spent this year on is to be on display for ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this September, and my pieces have also been shown in many exhibitions in various locations, but I’ve currently got my other works with me, excited to see where they end up next! I’ve been so grateful to be a featured artist at craft shows such as Vogue Knitting Live, H&H Americas in Chicago, and H&H Cologne over the last few years, where I’ve also had the chance to show a lot of my pieces, and will be working on some new stuff for these shows in the coming years as well!
Interview posted June 2026
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