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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