Big History Quilt--Threshold 1: The Big Bang

While I was recovering from my stroke, I lay in bed listening to The Great Courses "Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity" lectures by David Christian.  I was so entranced by his voice and the story that I decided to make a "Big History" quilt based on the eight major thresholds discussed.  Threshold 1 is "Origins of the Big Bang Cosmology" so the challenge was to create a block that represents the Big Bang. I bought the kids a book called Bang which is a picture book of how life on earth started and evolved.

Block 1 "The Big Bang" for our Big History Quilt.  We printed off some ideas.

 We drew a quick, rough pattern to  get the idea of something exploding outwards.

 We numbered all the pieces and cut them apart.  (When we cut out the fabric we pinned the pattern number back on to keep them straight.)

 Then we randomly pieced together scraps from the scrap buckets.

 We put our pattern piece on the sewn pieces.

 And then cut out leaving a 1/4 border.

 Two pieces lying together with the pattern numbers pinned in the corner.

 It's starting to look like I envisioned, but of course, not nearly as wonderful as I had imagined!

 All but the center exploding block in place.

This is it all sewn together.  We decided to make a kaleidoscope block exploding in the center and applique it in place.  These are test strips of yellow ribbon.  We wanted the sense of something exploding that was the central focus, but couldn't decide what it should be.

We let it sit for awhile so we could think about it.  Finally, we sewed the ribbon on and it didn't look very good.  So we had to make adjustments.