I use "whatever". A local shop was going out of business and I bought their entire stock of C&C for $50. A few weird colors, but it sews great, and I have a huge bag of thread. I can't bring myself to buy expensive thread, expensive fabric, expensive. . . . (you got it, I'm thrifty). My purpse in quilting is to be creative and use scraps. I don't spend hundreds of $$ for fabric/thread/quilting, etc just for a project.