Thanks everyone.
The thing I've found with cottonwood is that it gets it's color from time, the weather and the elements. If you cut it green it is plain with just a creamy white color in the wood. This wood came from a standing dead tree I cut a while back that had been dead long enough to loose the bark, start to split and turn grey. And on top of that this piece sat on the ground in my garden since last fall and spalted a little. Green cottonwood, poplar, aspen, willow are all stringy to turn. But let the wood get good and dry and it turns pretty nice.