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 is an improvised piece to depict the Revolutionary War Gunboat Spitfire, discovered intact at the bottom of Lake Champlain in 1997, the last unaccounted-for vessel of the Battle of Valcour Bay. I created the pattern from the 3D model of Spitfire made from digital photos mounted on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and made this with illusion knitting to represent its hidden nature at the bottom of the lake. Made in part to honor the work of the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership which has been a great supporter of the Wool and Water project, and also that of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and their work in discovering and protecting this boat.