What color thread
 

Would you use for quilting? Light purple, white, dark purple, what?

How are you quilting it? machine, hand? How confident are you in your quilting skills? Do you want the quilting to be the focal point of this or a background embellishment? I think answering these questions will tell you what color to use.

I will be hand quilting it. Would like for the centers of the blocks and the footballs to show the quilting.

Since you want it to show I would use a medium purple, something just a shade or two darker than the material.

In that case I would go with a light or medium purple. Dark purple may be too detracting and very often dark thread on a white has a tendency to take over. Especially in a solid as is the case in your quilt. I would audition a purple very close in value to the ring colors and maybe a shade lighter like a lilac. Your choice in batting will also impact how much the quilting will show. Something like Hobbs Polydown will give much more relief and shadow to the quilting (thus having it show more) as opposed to something very flat like Quilters Dream select or Hobbs 80/20.

Medium purple would be my choice.

I agree completely with Feline Fanatic. :)
Looking pretty so far!
Jan in VA

Light purple I agree! :) This is beautiful

Hard to tell if my monitor is showing your fabric colors accurately, but I would match the thread to the fabric of your centers/footballs. If this is a light purple, then definitely would use that. You will see the quilting even if it matches the fabric color. Beautiful quilt :)

Christine

i'd use light purple

I'd probably go with a light or medium purple as well. Nicely done, btw.

I'm drooling over that hand quilted red & white quilt underneath the DWR!

Lots of good advice! Please post a finished picture!! (for me it would take several years to hand quilt something like this.)

depends on the effect you are looking for. If you want it to blend in use light if you want to make the stitching pop use dark purple

Ditto what MatiMorga said.

I would go with light to medium purple, just a shade or two darker than the rings, although I've used variegated thread, which gives it a whole different dimension to the quilt. The quilt is very beautiful - love the violet.

Is there a variegated with some lime green blending with the shades of purple? How adventurous are you? How adventurous are the recipients? Something to think about??? Good luck. It is lovely.