Do I realize that not everyone will want to walk around with two wee pointy bits (ears? horns? who am I to say) sticking up out of the top of their heads? Oh yes, that’s why I made them optional.

Am I going to wear them sticking out and absolutely revel in any funny looks they garner from passersby? Also very much yes!

But you, should you happen to be feeling a bit more subdued, can absolutely tuck them in if you prefer. The hat is equally adorable either way.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to commit to one option or the other. You can totally pop the points in or out as the mood strikes. And, as we all know half the fun of being a knitter is having truly smashing accessory sets, you can do it while sporting the delightful matching mitts!

General information
This 24-page ebook includes patterns for both the hat (Decorum) and the mitts (Comportment). (The patterns are only available together as a set, they are not available individually.)

Skills & scope
These are pretty much exactly what I want in a project. Fun and easy with just enough going on to hold my attention, but not so much they feel hard!

For the hat, you’ll start with a quick ribbed brim, then transition into two lovely cabled panels (to show off and keep you focused) flanked by stockinette (to keep things mellow and give your yarn room to shine), then do a quick bit of magic at the top to shape things up (I promise it’s not hard, and you will feel remarkably clever when you’re done). On the mitts, you’ll do much the same (start with some ribbing, then a bit of cabling), just with an undeniably delightful thumb instead of a spiffy crown.

The pattern uses charts, so you will need to know how to follow a knitting chart.

Yarn, gauge & sizing
The hat comes in five sizes (from a 116 stitch cast on to a 148 stitch cast on), and the mitt in six (from a 40 stitch cast on to a 60 stitch cast on) and both are written for five gauges (from five and a half to seven and a half stitches per inch in half stitch increments).

That means you can use just about any weight of yarn from fingering up through worsted, and there will be a size to fit pretty much anyone’s head or wrist. Basically anything that will give you a fabric with a drape you like somewhere in that range of gauges will work.

The hat in the pictures took about 200 yards of dk-weight yarn, and the mitts took about 175 yards. If you’re working with thinner yarn, 250 yards for the hat and 225 for the mitts is a safer bet.

Tools & supplies
You’ll need needles that let you work in the round (circulars or DPNs) in whatever size lets you get a solid fabric with your chosen yarn plus the general knitting tools you need for most projects (scissors to cut your yarn, a darning needle to weave in ends, a cable needle if you like to use those for cables, the occasional stitch marker or bit of scrap yarn to hold stitches).