moon has set
and pleiades: middle
night, the hour goes by,
alone I lie.
-Sappho fr. 48, trans. Anne Carson

Some clear nights looking out over the sea, you can watch the moon sink below the horizon and the stars light up so suddenly it’s as though someone flipped a switch. Are those really the gas clouds of the Milky Way, or is your glasses prescription out of date? If you, like me, learned only the brightest stars that could break through the light pollution of a city, you might feel lost—where are the familiar outlines of Ursa Major, Orion’s Belt? I like to imagine the poet Sappho, looking up from her home on Lesbos thousands of years ago, welcoming those stars, so disorienting to me, as old friends on a lonely night.

The looping cables of this hat evoke the moments right before the starlight begins, tracing the downward path of the moon as it sinks into the sea. A simple yet satisfying knit, moonset hat is designed both for the seasoned knitter looking for an engaging addition to their hat collection and for the beginner tackling cables for the first time. The hat is worked inside out from the brim upwards and features an alternating cable cast-on for a neat, stretchy edge.

10% of the proceeds from the sale of this pattern go to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth.

This pattern has been tested and tech edited. Thank you to Tian Connaughton for tech editing, and to Matt Patenaude for photography.