For those of you who have embroidery/quilting machines, if you could only purchase a minimum amount of spools, which colors would you choose.

I just purchased a machine and will purchase about 10 spools of thread, to start with.

As always, thank you guys for your advise.

I can't imagine having only 10 spools of thread for embroidery. I guess it would depend on what my first project would be. One Christmas I embroidered a Santa that required 23 different thread colors, for one person. Then for another person I did a snowman family that required another 18 colors and only one or two were duplicates of the Santa. So I would suggest first to choose your project and then select the threads you want for that, then go on from there. I now have HUNDREDS of spools of embroidery thread in various colors.

When I got my machine, I purchased 360 spools to start with, my children got them for me for christmas.

White, light tan, dark brown, navy (can also be used instead of black) , true red, clear (not muddy looking) gray, Christmas green, medium pink, medium yellow, That's 9 basic colors.

I started out only buying the colors that I needed to stitch out a specific design. Then I purchased some thread kits that had coordinating colors. It won't take you long to built up a collection!!

I have about 90 spools of embroidery threads now but went with primary colours to start with, more black and white, red, blues, yellows, green, oranges...I have young kids so made lots of happy bright clowns, people, cars etc etc... but I'd still chose primary's and build up, some nice pinks, browns, flower colours maybe,

I did the same thing (I had to buy it myself, no gifts here)
Anyway, when you get a large set you have all the colors that add highlights to your embroideries. purchasing individual spools is that you are never going to buy that weird taupe or off off white that your design needs. While the sets with hundreds of colors are wonderful, I've seen sets with 60 to 80 colors that would work well. Most on line embroidery sites, like http://www.emblibrary.com will let you look at the Color change sheets that list the colors needed for the design. This will give you an idea of what is needed.

If you start with 10 colors, you will be limited to simple designs and monograms, which will be good to practice with.

If I were you I would decide what kinds of designs I wanted to begin with. Looking at those designs I would choose my colors.

You might post a request in the Classified section. Maybe someone has an assortment they would sell cheaper, so that you can get more colors.

Go to ebay and put in machine embroidery thread.

you can get lots for sites for 100 spools or more for $88.88 to $120.00
Good price when you consider by the spool is about $3.50 ea.

For my first 10 spools, I'd get black for sure, a dark red, red, navy, pink, medium blue, forrest green, light green, medium green, dark gray.
If you are looking or thread that is good quality and good price, check www.designsbysick.com. I've used their thread and it runs well in my machine and looks good on the stitchouts.

I got a huge set off ebay awhile back - great price, tons of colors and great thread too!! I also got a huge roll of stabilzer for my embroidery machine as well off ebay - couldn't beat the price.