jmoore

Friday, you described me to a tee...I’ll admit that I am OCD and a bit of a perfectionist. Sadly, I would get a lot more projects done if it I could simply “wing it.”

Your string blocks look great and I think you’ve done a wonderful job mixing them up...sorry that you labored over it though. LOL

scrappingfaye58

I truly Love it! I love string (and scrappy) -- they are bright, happy quilts

lindaschipper

I too am a controlled scrappy woman. For us, scrappy quilts just aren't easy. As suggested we probably need more practice at it!! I'm feeling your frustration.

Onebyone

I wish I had the magic answer. I don't have an OCD gene in my body. Sometimes that is just as bad because quilting mistakes don't bother me and I get perturbed when others think I should care. I leave quilt caring to them while I make more quilts. I think your quilt looks great. It's very cheerful.

Iceblossom

I mostly work in scrap/charm projects and often face this sort of dilemma. These are the things I've learned --

Numbering your blocks is key -- but it usually isn't that awful if something happens and they are out of order unless it changes the design. From long habit I number my blocks Alpha across the top and Numbers along the length. If I have a K9 block, there must be dog fabric! I fold typing paper to roughly 1" squares and pin the blocks in the upper left corner with tiny safety pins I got at the dollar store.

You might as well sew whatever comes up together, they end up next to each other in the end. Likewise, there may only be 4 pieces of bright orange in the entire queen sized quilt, but somehow they end up within the same square foot.

Set a time limit. Go ahead and be picky but spend the amount of time you think is reasonable, whether that is 30 minutes or 3 hours. Then go ahead and leave the room/shut the door on the project for at least 2 hours. Come back and see if anything jumps out at you. If not, consider it good enough and done. What I find is that any fiddling you do after you come back only creates more and often worse issues than the "good enough". And once you get away from the quilt for a bit such issues blur into the background. When we are up close and working on the current project it is easy to find every little flaw, but five years from now if anything bothers you at all -- it's likely something you didn't even see during construction. (I've told the story before about my Storm at Sea and how I never noticed one of the large squares was wrong side up until it was completed and hanging in a show. Ten years later and I know it's there somewhere but I have to really look for it.)

I have a small house with little wall and no floor space. I have to layout things on my queen bed which gets challenging on larger quilts.

But I feel the pain, I'm going to be laying out my Post Card quilt which is some 68+ (always make extra) different postcard sized pictures with attic window edges. "Attractive Randomness" is hard to achieve. The statistics student in me says that random can mean that the same fabrics touch or ugly results but the quilter in me insists on the attractive part.

zozee

So many of us are birds of a feather and we flock together in this obsession with the craziness of "random" placement.

We "get" each other. I did a string quilt once for a baby and I thought it would be totally fun. It was until I started realizing that some of my blocks had dark strings in the same place, which meant they'd visually form 3/4 of a box.

That's the only thing I would change in your lively, fun quilt. Block 6 C in the photo above touches 2 others, forming 3/4 of a blue box. Scatter those out a bit and I think the eye wouldn't zoom in on it "complete" the 4th side of the box. Hope that makes sense.

I have a jelly roll string quilt WIP on my design wall right now. Wish it was as easy to just put the blocks row by row, column by column, stitch by stitch and have that settled feeling when I look at it. But we are designers. Details matter. To some people they matter more. It's definitely a brain thing, not a character flaw. Does it impede productivity? Yes. Are we as prolific as others? No. But we are who we are, and our souls find rest when our eyes are satisfied with order.

I don't call myself a perfectionist. There is a difference.

Friday1961

Reply to Love to Sew (instead of quoting the whole message):

Great ideas! Thanks! And yes, I agree with all you say. I've already rearranged the section that shows the three purples together, in a 3-sided box. I did try to distribute the purple in each row as you suggested, as well as the red and white stripe. I also have to be conscious of the two red and white patterned fabrics and make sure they are as evenly distributed as I can get.

The reason I have no design wall is that I have no wall -- or not an expanse of wall large enough. I do have flannel that I bought to make a design wall, just no good place to hang it. But I may try again over closet doors, just for this quilt.

Thanks for your response and ideas!

Friday1961

Thanks to all who responded! And I agree with everything each of you has said.

Eventually, I'll sew this thing together and either be happy with it or haunted by a "mistake". I think I'll be happy enough, knowing with a quilt like this, there is no perfection, that the fabrics I've used -- that purple and that red and white striped particularly -- are always going to make arrangement less than perfect.

I've already moved the blocks in which the purple makes a 3 sided box. The idea of setting a time limit is good; I think I'll do that. Actually, I've done that before but without thinking it out, in that I've tinkered with something for 2 or 3 days and then suddenly decided: that's it, no more, I don't care (pick one! ha!). What really happens is that I finally get so bored with it and my issue with it, that I make a final decision.

I can't tell you, though, how encouraging it is to know that I am not alone in this kind of obsession, whether it's based in perfectionism or good design or OCD. It's nice to know there is understanding and sympathy....and most important, ideas that help! Thank you all!

Cheshirepat

First: I love the quilt whether in this configuration or whatever you do choose - it's very 'happy' to my eyes, and sweet. Good for you for using up the scraps!

Second: It's really funny, I was doing a log cabin (tiny thing in my avatar) and I actually put a block in, in the *wrong* direction because in my mind I didn't want to have the 2 matching fabrics near each other. Eventually I had to rip it out because well, it WAS in the wrong direction, ha! I've got the same issues with my 'eye' for which fabric must live where...just have to swallow and eventually get it done I guess! I never reach the perfection levels I hold in my head.

I hope you still have fun completing this one, and enjoy it when it's done!

Rose_P

Letting it "cook" is really important for me. If numbering and replacing everything is overwhelming, maybe you could pin the blocks to your bed cover and gently roll it up for the night and use something else to sleep under. It just needs to cook until you're happy with it. Maybe don't even look at it for a week or two. It will seem much less complicated after awhile, and you'll be able to look at it more objectively. It will be a wonderful quilt no matter how you arrange those blocks - really!