So Fine by Superior would be a good starter thread for both piecing and the Quilting. As a Quilting thread it is fine enough that it usually blends in well and lets the "piecing" be the star of the quilt, not the quilting....and as I generally piece better than I quilt (the actual quilting takes a fair amount of practice to get really good)...I don't always want the quilting thread to show. I probably would just use an 80 needle with it generally but it would be good to have a 90 on hand also in case I needed it for the quilting part...ummm….if you don't want to get a lot of thread colors….I would stick to a cream and a light or medium grey....because this colors will actually blend in pretty well with most....the cream will blend in with warm colors and grey with the cool colors....you can of course go wild and just get one of the "sets" of colors....but I really do find my self using cream and grey a lot....Superior thread actually has a lot of guides on their website as to size of needles and the uses of each thread....