It's all in the thread

I'm now quilting "Sunrise: Winter Solstice" and it's the first time I've used the new threads I purchased online from Connecting Threads a few months ago. These are their "Essential" brand threads, and on-sale (and in the thread collections) they came to about $1.50 per 1200 yard spool. I bought one of each of these color collections, plus 2 of the gray scale packs in that purchase. They are 50-weight and 100% Egyptian cotton, and my sewing machine loves these. I haven't had a snag or break in 2 evenings of quilting.

In the photos, the medallion is stitched in the ditch with an Alex Anderson red thread (same weight and cotton), but that 500-yard spool of thread cost me close to 8 dollars at a quilt show. I have the inner medallion, the first area of white and the gold/yellow quilted so far. I was going to start on the blue and white section, but tried something with a navy thread on the white, and spent 90 minutes picking it out of the quilt. So I decided to leave it for the rest of the night. I've been fretting over what to do around the medallion, and I think the gold thread worked out really well. I'll just need to think about what to do for the rest of the quilt in stages as well.

I have to get it done soon as I planned to have it in the Harvest Quilter's guild show this month.