<<were you absolutely random in the color placements, or did you choose where the colors fell? your dominant colors seem to be yellow and red and the yellows look like they sort of frame the blocks. was that planned>>
It was semi-planned. My process is to make blocks, throw them up on my design wall in no order whatsoever, and then over the course of days or weeks, fiddle with placement. I take a digital photo periodically, as that helps me to look at values rather than specific blocks. As I did that, I noticed that the red and yellow blocks were sticking out like sore thumbs. I decided that I either had to be very careful about the placement of yellows and reds in the quilt, or I needed to add a lot more of it to make it less random. So the final ring of logs has a very high percentage of red and yellow fabrics (I broke my rule of only using the strips I had on hand, already cut from other projects, and actually cut more strips of those reds and yellows). Then I sorted the blocks into predominately red / predominately yellow piles, and put them back on the design wall for another course of fiddling around until I found a pattern I liked.
It was random in that I did not sew specific blocks (the number of yellow and red blocks was completely unplanned. But it was very planned in that I made choices about color and placement every step of the way. This is pretty much my favorite way to work. I don't pre-plan very much, but I do make design decisions consciously every step of the way.
re- question what is eyelashing -- that's what it's called when thread from your bobbin pulls through to the top and shows on the front, much like a scattering of eyelashes. Since my bobbin thread was dark green, and much of the top is lighter, this did show up quite a bit. But I'm happy with my decision to ignore it, as the wash shrinkage (3 inches smaller after wash due to crinkling) helped it disappear. If I were more persnikity, I could have worked on tension issues of the machine to get a better stitch. It was challenging though, as my sample sandwhich would be perfect, but then when I was in the middle of the quilt, with same settings, same thread, same fabric combo, I'd see the eyelashing. Shrug. Not worth stressing in my book.
RST
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