Update - this project was made in 2019 but has since become part of 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. In association with the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute has embarked on a collaborative fiber arts project supported by the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership to showcase the legacy of protecting clean water in the Lake Champlain Basin and beyond.

2019 notes:

Started something else for the Tunisian Crochet Explorers play with color TCAL but then got this idea into my head. I made up a pattern just using Tunisian simple stitch and measurements from one of my dresses that I like the fit of. It’s big enough I can wear it with a tshirt under it if need be.

Data came from NASA - these are global temperature anomalies going back to 1880. I explored a bunch of datasets but used this one because it would give me the longest record and was trying to get to somewhere around 160 rows based on the gauge I had. All of it is scrap yarn, primarily fingering weight, leftover from past projects. Super fun and addicting and depressing all at once.

All motivated by relentless climate change news that’s so awful and watching what Dorian just did to the Bahamas and generally thinking about climate change every day. Also motivated by Greta Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic on a zero emissions boat to get here for the UN climate meeting. So, my attempt at craftivism, to be worn on 9/20 for the Global Climate Strike and at every yarn fest I can find this fall.

Update - I had a few questions about how I did this and although I have no pattern, I’m happy to try to explain :)

First - it is Tunisian crochet. I’m a lifelong knitter who recently learned Tunisian and am addicted, in part because it is so FAST and that’s what I wanted with this, so I went with it, but could be done in any craft, all you need is the ability to make stripes.

The yarn is all scraps that I already had around, and predominantly fingering weight so unfortunately I don’t have a good sense of how much yarn I used but I used scraps of 24 different colors. The first thing I did was to look for a temperature dataset that would give me enough rows to make enough length at the gauge I had with this yarn and hook size. I took a simple tunic dress I had and recorded all the measurements on it and aimed to make that same basic shape. Those were (in inches) about:

top of back neck to bottom edge 37
top of front neck to bottom edge 34
approx width widest point at bottom 34
approx width at waist 20
approx width at bust 19
arm depth 8.5

This dress was slightly big but I wanted something that could fit over a t shirt or some kind of shirt. My gauge in the Tunisian was about 4.5st/in in width and I knew I wanted a dataset long enough to give me enough rows for the length. That led me to NASA temperature anomaly data which goes back to 1880. I downloaded that and I used the data for the full year (mean Jan-Dec) although you could pick any month, or just winter, etc. That provided 139 rows of data which I figured was enough to get me near the length I wanted. My row gauge was somewhere around 4 rows/in but somewhat variable because of different yarn weights. I took the data and put it in excel, sorted the values and then looked at the available colors I had and put them into something that looked like a hot/cold color gradient as best I could and split the data among 24 colors. Then I went back to the data in annual order and assigned a color to each value.

When I had the colors I figured out stitch counts, etc, which for me was starting with 130 and decreasing at a slow rate til I got to somewhere around 90 st which was about waist level on the dress, so I worked from the bottom edge up. Then I went straight until the length at which I wanted to start the armholes and I just worked out a decrease pattern for the armholes and made each strap separately to roughly match the measurements of the dress I was using as a guide. Because I don’t have right type hook and have never tried it, I don’t know how to do Tunisian in the round yet, so I made a front and a back separately. And because the edges were somewhat crazy due to weaving in a bunch of ends and due to somewhat varying yarn weights, I seamed this on the sewing machine. It’s not a pretty seam but it wouldn’t have been if I tried to do it by hand on those crazy edges either, and I wanted a very strong shoulder seam knowing this thing was going to grow as it was hanging on me. Doing it in the round with knitting or anything else would have been easier for sure and would’ve eliminated my ugly seams but who cares. I’ve added an image that is from my excel spreadsheet (but first via pdf and then jpeg so I apologize for the resolution, don’t know the best way to do this) that will hopefully provide a rough sense of what I did if you zoom into it.

I wore it to the local climate strike here on 9/20 and it was very warm on that 80 deg day which is unfortunate but I guess is the point. There was a time in the past when I could’ve worn a yarn dress in late Sept and not been too hot at all. I’ll wear it to Rhinebeck if it’s not too warm there