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.

Knitted scarf depicts the declining frequency of very cold winter days at Indian Lake, NY. Each square is a February day since 1933, those embellished with blue are days of -20F or colder. We do not see cold days like this as often as we used to. Inspired by friend and colleague Curt Stager who has studied climate change for many years and put this graphic out to the world with a challenge that someone make it into art. Pattern is a simple basketweave with surface embroidery added afterwards. I used only February data and only went back as far as 1933 because I was running out of yarn