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.

Increased periods of drought is one of the conditions associated with climate change in the northeastern US. This hat represents drought observed in Monroe County, NY. Based on the Palmer Drought Index, colors of each section represent the increasing number of months during which some portion of the county experienced drought conditions annually from 2001 (top of hat) – 2024 (bottom). I used Knitpicks palette yarn that I had in the colors that approximate the Palmer drought index and followed the basic pattern of the Wurm hat but used multiple colors.

This piece was created in association with a short-term artist residency supported by the Institute for Human Health and the Environment at the University of Rochester in which we used Wool and Water to explore the connections between water and human health.