I worked with Rodrigues Fruit Bats for 10 years and adored them! They basically looked like lemurs with wings, loved treats like fruit loops, and when we had to handle them for medical reasons we wrapped them up like burritos, with just their furry heads sticking out!

Bats in general get a very bad rap in the world at large. People think they’re scary, gross, or a pest to be exterminated. But bats are amazing and incredibly important to the ecosystem. Without bats we would very soon be overrun by flying pests like mosquitoes, so if anything…. bring on more bats please!

A good friend of mine is studying native bats for her Master’s degree and I decided that she needed to be truly decked out to show her love so I knitted and sent her the Bats in the Night Sky Beanie by Joan Rowe, a great pattern all around with GREAT anatomical detail♥.

As I was brainstorming ideas for patterns, bats crossed my mind and I was intrigued by the concept of a cowl pattern that would look like you were viewing the front or back of the bat depending on what side of the cowl you were looking at. so I played around with some ideas on Excel and came up with the “I am the Night” cowl, with our flying friend’s wings wrapping from back to front, his face or back visible depending on your perspective.

I made a grand effort to finish this and my Wonder Woman headband pattern before my little nugget arrived since I knew I would have no time or energy to do so for quite a while afterwards! So I finished the cowl, took and edited pictures and put together the final pattern so that it was ready to upload to Ravelry as soon as I had a spare moment. “I am the Night” will join my “Happy Husky Hippo” pattern in donating $1 from each pattern sold to the World Wildlife Fund, to help conserve biological diversity, promote sustainability, reduce pollution, and increase water quality!  So I hope that there are some bat enthusiasts out there that will want to show their love with fiber ♥