Queen of the Night

I love Mozart's operas. They're so funny and full of good tunes. Years ago before opera became rather popular in Sydney and tickets consequently became sought after and expensive, I used to have quite a supply of free tickets to dress rehearsals and performances showered on me by relatives who worked in the orchestra or warbled away on stage. There were plenty of Mozart operas amongst the offerings. Don Giovanni was my favourite character because I liked the way he was so wicked but so unrepentant at the end. He may have been bad but he stuck to his principles, if you can call them that.
I used to really enjoy a dress rehearsal on a sunny day when I'd be sitting in the dark at the Opera House, eating minties and watching the dragon at the start of The Magic Flute cavorting, or perhaps galumphing around the stage. And the Queen of the Night - what a crosspatch! Shoving her daughter around and screaming at her to go and kill Sarastro. So nasty and unnecessary.

 

This is Diana Damrau as the Queen and a clue to the reason for her temper. The poor thing is cold. There she is, out in the night air with barely a shred of gossamer to cover her. No wonder she has to work up such a head of steam. What she needs is something warm to wear and so I've kindly made her a shawl in the hope that she'll settle down and leave everyone alone. 

Here it is - a preview of Queen of the Night -

 She can wrap herself in this as she wanders around her flower garden at midnight thinking happy thoughts and sniffing the heady scents.

It's mostly knitted from Renaissance Dyeing's BFL (Nuit) and it stays on the comfortably on the shoulders and doesn't try to slip off. The pattern will be available very soon.

As you can see, the blossom is out here. We had three solid weeks of rain and everyone was getting quite depressed - and then spring arrived! A whole week early. We've been working in the vegie garden and enjoying the sunshine. And the first lambs have arrived, two sets of twins, so it must really be spring.