Two good books on thread work - I'm still reading through both of them as I intend on doing some thread painting on a landscape quilt that I'm still piecing.
"Thread Work Unraveled" by Sarah Ann Smith (AQS Publishing)
"Thread Painting Made Easy" by Terry White
Thread Painting is geared more toward what I would call free motion machine embroidery as some of his designs are completely thread painted. Thread Work covers pretty much everything from basic quilting to light thread painting.
I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the technique of thread painting yet for my quilt. I figured after I finished both books and as I got closer to actually quilting the darn thing ... I'll mimic some of my appliqued areas on 12" sqares of batting and practice to see how much "pull" the thred work does, if and how I need to stablize, etc. I'm working with pretty heavy stuff ... in some area's lots of layers of applique already sewed down with monofilament onto muslin. It's already pretty darn stable so I might not need anything (and both books do mention that depending on the layers your working with and the degree of threadwork - you may not need a stabelizer at all - the work itself is already stabelized).
Something to consider (and there was another thread on this question the other day) is to use a hoop. There are some that are interlocking hoops that clasp around the fabric (like an embroider hoop - but flatter so you can get it under the machine), and Sharon Schambers sells a hoop that just sits on top of the fabric and I watched her demo it in Paducah. She sells these hoops on her website.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!!