Once I tried Aurifil, I was hooked and use it for both piecing and quilting. It is very smooth, so there is much less lint buildup in my machine. Plus, it looks great! The weight I am using is 50/2. Before that, I used Mettler silk-finish cotton 50/3 most of the time. Especially for close quilting, I found that 50/3 stiffened the quilt more than I like.