Happy little Hollyhock :)

Must have been all the good wishes out there, helped along by all the info I could gather in Google- Land.

It all started to make sense. The sweater is 100% finished.

Hooray :)

Sad little hollyhock :(

Seems I spoke too soon about that lovely Hollyhock sweater. I have been trying to sew in the sleeves, make that sleeve, since I haven't moved past the first one.

I am not happy..... moving on to Google a solution.

Say a prayer.

Please.

H is for Horses!

As much as I wanted to let H be for Historic, I kept seeing HORSES everywhere I went in downtown Lancaster last week. Of course, a trip downtown always includes seeing a mounted police officer, usually accompanied by an adoring group of fans. (That'd be for the HORSE!)

Then, there is the artsy horsey in the window of a local gallery on Prince Street.

And, as I waited for the light to change at Walnut and Duke Streets, I quickly snapped some pictures of a very historic stable. This long building

was used as military stables during the Revolution. On the opposite side of the street, stood the Barracks where British and Hessians were imprisoned.

And then I remembered the

Horse Inn, one of Lancaster's best kept secrets. You seem to be on a treasure hunt as you follow the directions, hoping to find this little place. The second floor restaurant, once a speak-easy, exudes history....and the food's really good too.

Whoa!!!!! This post IS about historic stuff

Not to forget knitting, here's a photo of my Hollyhock cap-sleeved top in progress...to quote from the book, Knitting in the Sun, this top has "stylish architecture and modern ornamentation like its namesake, Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, California, which was built for an independent woman with a passion for the arts."

Now if only I was better at inserting pictures, you all wouldn't have to read this post sideways to see the Hollyhock!

Just another day??

I was running late this morning getting to an appointment in downtown Lancaster, fuming as I sat in traffic that wasn't going anywhere.....I took a couple of alleys, arrived at my destination and found out that a building had collapsed onto Queen Street, the road I would have been on. It was to have housed the Lancaster Art Museum up till a few weeks ago, when the Museum opted to stay in their present location.

In what seems like a miracle, not one person was hurt. Debris landed on a transit bus, but none of the other traffic had started to move as the traffic light had just changed. Wow! No one on the bus was injured. (The only passengers were all seated on the far side of the bus.)

It's very sad that a beautiful building was lost due to the thoughtlessness of the company doing major excavation work next door to it. They had done absolutely nothing to protect the existing building as they excavated extremely close to it.

It's a beautiful spring day here in Lancaster and no one was hurt. Thank God.

Golly Gee. Here's my G.

Galleries galore..... In recent years, Lancaster City has become a mecca for art lovers. We've always had our museums, but now we have galleries, one more interesting than the next. Gallery Row used to house empty, run-down buildings. Now, it is full to the brim with cool art galleries. I am thrilled beyond words at the transformation.

Even the cellar window coverings have art on them...art is everywhere

you look these days.

Freiman Stoltzfus began by painting the people and landscapes of the Amish community years ago. Check out what he's painting these days...One of my favorites: Lady of the Irises.

It's been such fun to watch as the art scene evolves in the city. So many fine artists in so many artistic mediums..... awesome.

F is for the Fulton!

A lot of people know about Robert Fulton

and his steamboat. If you got to know him "up close and personal", you'd find out that he was born in Little Britain, PA, just down the road from Lancaster City. He traveled to Paris to study painting, then became an engineer, had something to do with the first submarine, and eventually died in NYC and was buried in Trinity Church cemetery.

Lancaster County is chock full of tributes to Fulton, my most unfavorite being the giant steamboat restaurant on Route 30, but I digress.

The best and the brightest of the tributes to Robert Fulton is the Fulton Theater, the Grand Old Lady of Prince Street.

The oldest continually running theater in America, it was built on the site of Lancaster's pre-Revolutionary jail where the Paxtang Boys, a local vigilante group, massacred the last of the Conestoga Indians, while they were being held there for their protection, thus inspiring all those ghost sightings of legend. The exterior wall of the jail courtyard is now the back wall of the theater, and before the recent renovations, the green room was reached via a creepy stone area that you tended to run through while peeking over your shoulder. (At least I did.)

This National Historic Landmark has been called by many names over the years :

Fulton Hall, the Fulton Opera House, the Fulton......It's also been many things during its' history. I can't say it any better than the following, copied from the theater website "From a meeting hall, to the "Queen of the Roadhouses" through Vaudeville, the movies, near destruction, salvation and on to the cutting edge of contemporary theatre, the history of this majestic place literally chronicles the evolution of the American Stage."

There's nothing quite like being part of a production and standing on that stage.

So there you have it: the fantastic Fulton Theatre.