Friday, December 2, 2022 – 10AM-5PM
Saturday, December 3, 2022 – 10AM-4PM
A Christmas Market featuring local art, crafts, and food will be held at the Mennonite Heritage Center, 565 Yoder Road, Harleysville, on Friday, December 2, from 10 am to 5 pm, and Saturday, December 3, from 10 am to 4 pm.
Several artists will show their work at the Christmas Market. Using egg tempera, oil, watercolor, and silverpoint, Jonathan Bond depicts landscapes and farm scenes in northern Berks County. In addition to original paintings, Bond offers gift items, such as notecards and bags, with images of his work. Lancaster County artist Marie E. Riegle examines the natural world through botanical illustrations. She also explores spiritual themes by constructing nests of cast-off materials, both natural and human made. Artist Lynn Sommer is inspired by fraktur, a Pennsylvania German folk art. She uses traditional motifs, such as birds and flowers, but innovates by adding song. Her work incorporates hymnody and musical imagery.
The Christmas Market will have a variety of local and handcrafted gifts, including knitted and crocheted hats and gloves, handsewn aprons and cooking pouches, handwoven baskets and scarves, embroidery, and wood crafts. Karen Wychock weaves Shaker reproduction baskets and uses native hard wood for the rims and handles. Ann Hermes works with hand-dyed woolens and yarns to create applique projects and embroidery pincushions, using nineteenth-century Pennsylvania German techniques. Using yarn made of silk, alpaca, and merino wool, Cathy Decherney creates scarves with unique color patterns. Rodney’s Wood Crafts produces handcrafted wooden puzzles, trains, and animals. Jim King uses false grain techniques to decorate boxes and frames.
The Christmas Market will offer local food and ingredients. Awckland’s Sugar Shack and Apiary from Bucks County will sell pure, raw honey from their own family-managed beehives. Justin Chisholm of Chizfit creates plant-based pies and other nutritious muffins, cookies, and breads. His goal is to make desserts that not only taste amazing but are also good for your body. A&L Baked Goods offers old-fashioned baking with locally sourced ingredients. Their shoofly pies, cinnamon rolls, and whoopie pies are made with eggs that come from their flock of backyard chickens. Sandy “Mama” Reese will have homemade vanilla sugar and vanilla extract to add to holiday baking. For those short on time, Roseanne’s Ready Mixes has soup, tea, and cookie mixes already packaged in jars.
This event benefits the Mennonite Heritage Center, which collects, preserves, and shares the Anabaptist/Mennonite story through museum exhibits and a historical library and archives.
Fine Art
Jonathan Bond’s latest exhibit, “Nothing is Everything,” is on display in the Lapp Gallery at the Mennonite Heritage Center. Using egg tempera, oil, watercolor, and silverpoint, Bond depicts landscapes and farm scenes in northern Berks County. In addition to original paintings, Bond offers gift items, such as notecards and bags, with images of his work.
Lynn Sommer is inspired by Fraktur, a Pennsylvania German folk art. She uses traditional motifs, such as birds and flowers, but innovates by adding song. Her work incorporates hymnody and musical imagery. She lives and works in Lancaster County.
Marie E. Riegle examines the natural world through botanical illustrations. She also explores spiritual themes by constructing nests with cast-off materials, both natural and human made. She has exhibited her work in the Ware Center at Millersville University, the Lancaster Museum of Art, the Governor’s Mansion, and other small shows and museums. She taught college-level art for over thirty years.
Food
A&L Baked Goods offers homemade Pennsylvania Dutch baking with local ingredients. If you’re hungry for Shoofly Pie, Whoopie Pies, or Cinnamon Rolls, then look no further. A&L also bakes dinner rolls and cookies.
Prefer homemade ingredients to storebought ones? Mama Reese (Sandy Reese) creates her own vanilla extract and vanilla sugar, which are perfect for holiday baking.
Need some cookies in a hurry? Roseanne’s Ready Mixes can help. The dry ingredients for Multi-Chip Cookie Mix come pre-packaged in a jar. Soup and tea mixes are also available.
Awckland Sugar Shack is a family run apiary that is local to upper Bucks County. Local raw honey has health benefits!
Looking for a special treat? Pick up some Alpine Heritage cheese (Amish made from Lancaster County) and Christmas Mincemeat at the Mennonite Heritage Center’s Christmas Market December 2 & 3. Supplies are limited.
Crafts
Ann Hermes has been collected fabric for more than twenty years and specializes in making small quilts out of antique and vintage fabrics culled from her collection. More recently Ann has turned her attention to working with hand-dyed woolens and yarns, designing both applique projects and stitching plush embroidery pincushions and whimsies, using techniques from the 19th century Pennsylvania Germans.
False grain painting is a technique that involves applying a dark glaze over yellow paint. While the glaze is still wet, tools such as a comb, corncob, or brush create a spontaneous texture. Jim King looks to Old Order Amish cabinetmakers to make the boxes and frames that he finishes with a false grain. Jim lives and works in Lancaster County.
Try some wearable art by Knit2Weave. Using yarn made of silk, alpaca, and merino wool, Cathy Decherney creates scarves with unique color patterns. She also creates handknit stuffed animals.
Prepare for winter with the help of Jill and Bill Rattigan. Their coffee cup holders, knitted and crocheted hats, scarf cowls, and gloves will protect against the winter chill.
Looking for a special gift? Rodney’s Wood Crafts offers handmade wooden puzzles, trains, and airplanes.
Melody Weaver’s homemade aprons, microwaveable potato pouches, and kitchen hand towels are practical and beautiful gifts. Other gifts include dish scrubbers, bags to put on walkers, baby blankets, and baby sweaters.
Karen Wychock enjoys basketry because it combines her love of woodworking and weaving. She weaves Shaker reproduction baskets in ash and reed, and she uses native hard wood for the handles and rims. Her work can be found in the Artisan Shop at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.