C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 13,1980
Pattie works on intertwining grapevines which
will become part of the wreaths she sells in her
home business, the Berry Patch. She drags the
vines from the woods and works on them in the
clearing in front of her rural home.
She brings
the outdoors
for Christmas
Pattie makes wreaths made of grapevines and with a wide variety of natural materials to create
honeysuckle and other natural materials. She works wreaths which are truly one of a kind.
indoors
A door hanging features some of the natural
materials which characterize Pattie’s creations.
BY SALLY BAIR
Staff Correspondent
Pattie Longenecker has a storage room which looks like
an extension of the fields and woods which surround her
Elizabethtown R 4 home There are feathers, vines,
flowers, weeds and berries in colorful disasrray, but with
a purpose - they will eventually find a place m one of her
beautiful, original natural creations.
Wreaths come to mind at this holiday season and
Paltie’s work area abounds in wreaths of all sizes, but she
also makes door hangings and other natural decorations
which add a distinctive note to any kind of decor at any
time of the year.
Pattie insists that she has no more creative talent than
most people, saying she just puts things together in a
unique way that people seem to like
She says, “I’ve always enjoyed creating with my own
ideas. I never read craft books and I think that is some of
the reason why my business has grown. I never took a
course -1 just do my version of something. My wreaths
are different; they are my feeling rather than a pattern. A
lot of people want a little different effect. I don’t feel I
have any talent.
The basis for many of Pattie’s wreaths is honeysuckle
and grapevines, which she intertwines to form a natural
oval or round wreath of whatever size she desires. One of
the largest she ever made was a three foot wreath which
hangs over the fireplace in the tasting room at Nissley
Vineyards. She formed that one in the woods and it was so
heavy she had to roll it to her car. But she also makes tiny
wreaths which are suitable for use as tree ornaments.
She enhances the basic wreath by adding natural dried
materials or a bird’s nest or some com husk flowers she
has made.
She began making the wreaths a few years ago when a
friend told her to visit a department store which featured
the grapevine wreaths as part of their window dressing.
Pattie never found the tune to go, but began ex
perimenting and soon leaned to make the wreaths herself.
A former elementary school teacher, Pattie remarks,
“I just assumed I’d get back into it, but I never even had
>
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tune to substitute. I just try to keep ahead of my orders I
had no intention of starting a business.
“I love to be here, ” she asserts. “If I had a regular job I
wouldn’t have the energy to run this place.”
“This place” is the country home she shares with her
husband John and their two children, Brad, 11 and Beth, sf]
The Longeneckers moved back to Elizabethtown abos
nine years ago after living in Michigan for seven years
They searched in vam for an old stone farmhouse, finally
bought the acreage where they now live, had it cleared,
and built their own farmhouse. It is living on this 35 acres
of land to which Pattie attributes some of her feelings and
creations.
The Longeneckers provide for a lot of their own needs,
including raising chickens for eggs, ducks for eating, bees
for honey and pollinating fruit trees and a large garden
They have also planted an acre of domestic raspberries,
which gives the children a lot of picking and also a sum
mer income.
Pattie says, “John and Brad do all the pruning This
gives the children a lot of responsibility.”
The Longenecker family heats their whole house with
wood and the aid of a greenhouse on one comer. They are
proud of the efforts they have made toward conservation
and Pattie says, “We’re on our way to becoming self
sufficient.”
It was actually a gift from a neighbor which started
Pattie on her business venture. A couple bought a goose
for their Thanksgiving dinner but couldn't bear to kill it so
they gave it to the Longeneckers where it became
“Gertrude.” Gertrude is now a beloved pet, with al
acquired mate, and it was her egg that Pattie fire?
decorated for Easter.
Pattie says, “I started messing around with duck eggs
and then with corn husk flowers smce we had the corn for
the animals I began giving them as gifts and it all
mushroomed.” Another friend convinced her to attend the
Mount Gretna Art Show and she sold out of her corn husk
creations.
Eventually Pattie named her busines the “Berry
Patch,” and Gertrude became the symbol on the hand
carved sign which marks the end of the Longenecker
driveway. Pattie says, “We wouldn’t have put a sign up
but everybody goes by the lane. ’ ’
Pattie does not keep hours at her home, because she
spends a lot of tune in the woods gathering the materials
she needs. All her sales are by order She usually works at
the dining room table, often m an assembly line
fashion.“ Then I can’t get away from it - this house is so
open. I work other things around what I’m doing I’m very
flexible -1 don’t put in a straight six hour day My family
comes first and I try to fit my work around them,” she
states. '
Pattie is always on the lookout for natural materials,
and she has her family framed to do the same She
laughingly recalls an incident where her husband wit
nessed a car hit a great homed owl. He gathered up the
carcass, took it home and provided Pattie with som« :
beautiful and unusual feathers for her work.
(Turn to Page C 3)
!■ jl
Pattie poses with her collection of natural decor
ations which she had prepared for last week's
AAUW Holly Trail in Lancaster. She is holding
some of the corn husk flowers she makes
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