Von Bergen Dairy Farm Quilt by Nancy

Where do you even begin to describe this quilt?  I guess at the beginning. 

I received an e-mail from Nancy in February 2014 with the following in the e-mail."In working out my grief at losing my mother in June, I finished some family tree research which I knew would have pleased her immensely. The outflow of the research  caused me to undertake this quilt project, which depicts my great grandparent's dairy farm, and would have been such a source of delight to mom, as well as providing a durable family history for my kids and grandkids."  Nancy then attached some photos of the quilt top, and described what she had done.  Above is the full quilt after quilting.  Below are more detailed photos of specific parts of the quilt.

 Here is the house.  Nancy quilted the house before she sent it on to me.  Notice the small glass bead to represent the old glass doorknob on the front door.







Below, we have the family.  Nancy took a photo, and "dressed" the people in the photo in fabrics.  Underneath she has included the names of who is who.










The fruit trees on the farm are all dimensional.  Nancy took small pieces of fabric and stitched these to the background.

Here is "The Large Black Walnut Tree".  They don't show in the photo, but Nancy has made small French Knots on the ground to represent the walnuts that had already fallen to the ground.  Notice the quilt hanging on the clothesline to the left of the tree, and the vegetable garden to the right of the tree.  Again, all dimensional.

It's a dairy farm, so you have to have dairy cows.

My favorite is the barn.  The door actually slides back and forth on the metal rods that she has attached above and below.

The walkway up to the front door is surrounded by flowers.

Now for the best part.  Many of these dimensional buildings lift up to reveal something underneath.  Nancy has a photo of the original house, certificates to acknowledge that the family was an Early Settler to the territory, a drawing that Nancy's mother made of what she remembered of the farm, and a plotting by the city to show who owned what piece of property.

The circle shows where the Black Walnut tree was.

I don't know if this house still exists, but regardless, this is a wonderful testimony to the family that worked so hard for so many years to provide a home for their families.  The treasure that Nancy has created is just amazing, and I hope that it will be treasured for many, many generations to comes.