Thread colour for FMQing a quilt?
 

The only way I can FMQ right now is with an overall meander stitch. Usually the quilts I make are busy enough that a tan or light grey thread blends in well. But I'm flummoxed with what colour thread to use on this quilt due to the colour variation. If I were more experienced, I'd probably quilt the darker unicorn squares with a medium blue and perhaps a tan or eggshell on the rest, but I'm not sure enough of my skill level to do that.

So, if you were to use one thread for the whole quilt in a meander/ stipple pattern, what would you use? Thanks.

All depends on the quilt. Also if it's long arm or DSM. Been practicing with my 401 since a flatter/flush surface. I've been practicing SID and few swirlies and loops.

I FMQ on my home machine, and I am still learning. I like using variegated thread. King Tut has some great colors. I can usually find a spool that has colors that go with my quilt fabric

I'm not sure what happened, but apparently the picture didn't show up. FMQ = a sewing machine, not longarm. As you can see, there is a lot of variation in colour. I have a blue variegated, but I don't know how it would look on the lavender.

http://i817.photobucket.com/albums/z...ps3b9b52cd.jpg

I think the blue variegated would look good, I also use variegated a lot!

I usually don't pick a color that blends with one color. I tend to pick a color you can see on ALL the fabrics but does not stand out and take over. I might pick a darker tan or a gold...maybe the purple in the larger squares I might go with a light purple. pull out some thread and lay it over the fabric to see what it will look like. I even have a spearmint green that acts like a neutral. Love that pattern. I have used it more than once

If it were mine and I was using one color only, I'd match or go just slightly darker than the background. I don't mind how the light threads usually look fine on the prints, but I don't often care for the dark color thread on the light background.

Do you have some threads you can unwrap several feet and put on top to see how it looks? It's a good way to gauge it. I like to take pics too. For some reason, when I see the pics, it helps me decide.

I use varigated whenever possible, but if a quilt has one predominate color I use that, and for the back I try to match bobbin thread with that. But what I like best is to have top and bobbin thread match.

take the threads you are thinking about using and pull out about 2 ft lay them on the quilt and see which one you like best.

I'm not particularly a fan of variegated thread. When I've used it before I felt it actually drew more attention to itself then it did hiding. I just did a watery colored quilt with blues, purples, grays with a white background. I quilted it with a soft blue thread. I showed up a bit on the white, which was the effect I was looking for, I was quilting swirlies that would look like water swirling. I think an all over stippling could also give that type of effect of moving water, so I would consider using a soft blue.