I am a Senior Research Scientist for the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute and this is one of several pieces made for a project called Wool and Water.

Wool and Water is a data art project that blends fiber art with scientific data to create visual representations of changing water quality conditions in the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Basin. We began in 2022 in association with the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. Support from the Lake Champlain Basin Program, the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership and others has enabled us to build an enduring project and to use fiber art to showcase the legacy of protecting clean water in the Lake Champlain Basin and beyond. Pieces here in Ravelry are my own but the project website has additional works made by many others as a part of this collaborative effort.

This piece is a collaboration between my great great grandmother and me. Borrowing a cross-generational collaboration idea from a musician friend of mine, I took a piece of hers and added to it. My aunt sent me a box of things crocheted by my great great grandmother which included a bag of edgings; this one was a wave pattern which made a great entree for Wool and Water. She lived from 1877-1936 so I’m sure it is at least 100 years old. The central edging piece was hers and done in a filet crochet style that was very popular in the Victorian era and the early 20th century. I added to her piece with newer, improvised representations of waves inspired by freeform crochet, a style that emerged in the 1960s and 70’s and has seen a recent increase in popularity. From a functional standpoint I have no idea what one would do with this but I had a great time making it.