I like variegated if I can get in the right colors. I like a base color in other areas. I changed thread at least 8 times on one quilt, bit usually can get by with 2 or 3. I was thread painting the animals on the wildlife quilt, so it took a lot of changes. The quilt I just finished had red areas with scrappy, yellow areas with scrappy and then white areas, so those were my three colors. The red was variegated red to white. I kept a cream color in the bobbin for all. I don't mind changing top thread, but I try not to change the bobbin.