Guides / Making your chart
Nearly 500 DMC threads, and no idea which go together? Three routes lead to a palette that holds up, with numbers you can ask for at the shop.
There are nearly 500 DMC stranded cottons, and that is exactly what makes choosing hard. Three routes lead to a palette that holds up, and they combine well: look at what others have stitched, take the colours of a photo you like, or start from one thread and its neighbours. Each way, you come away with a list of numbers, which is what you ask for at the shop.
Start by browsing the gallery. Every chart there is published with its thread list: when a combination stops you, note its numbers. You can reuse those colours as they are for another subject; that is how many stitchers build palettes.
The categories help you look for a mood. Flowers show soft pinks and greens, landscapes blues and greens that answer each other, Halloween oranges, purples and black, Christmas the red 321 with greens such as 699. Motifs, often stitched in two or three colours, show how much can be done with little.
Look at the finished pieces too: stitched thread is not quite the colour of its square on screen. Stitches cast tiny shadows, and contrasts look softer for real. A photo of a finished piece shows you the palette as it will be.
A scarf, a bunch of flowers, a corner of the garden in autumn, a poster: anything whose colours you like can become a palette. Take a photo of it, or pick a picture, and drop it into the converter.
You can keep the chart, of course. But the palette can be reused for something else too. With “Edit by hand”, the chart opens in the pattern maker with all its threads: clear the picture and draw your own design in those colours. Or note the numbers and enter them under “Use my own threads” to convert another photo with exactly that palette.
If you are after the reference for one precise colour, a Pantone reference, a paint swatch or a pixel, the colour to DMC tool gives the nearest thread and its neighbours.
Every thread has its page in the colour chart, and each one offers three palettes built around it, all in real DMC cottons. They are the three harmonies painters and illustrators use most.
The monochrome palette keeps a single hue, from light to dark. It is the one for shading: tawny fur stitches very well with a run such as 738, 436, 434 and 801. The analogous palette takes the neighbouring hues on the colour wheel, for a gentle set that stays one family. The complementary palette reaches for the opposite hue: around a blue like 797 it finds oranges, and it is the one that makes a detail sing.
The same pages list the charts published here that use the thread, and the finished pieces it appears in. That is a second source of ideas: you see which other threads the community pairs it with. Some turn up nearly everywhere, like black 310, White or Ecru, and deserve a place in any thread box.
Tip. Stitching in Anchor, Madeira or Cosmo? Every reference of those brands has its page too, with its DMC equivalent: Anchor 403 black, for instance. The Anchor, Madeira and Cosmo colour charts sort them by colour.
Contrast in lightness matters more than hue. Squint at your selection: if two threads merge, they will merge stitched too. A readable palette has lights, mids and darks, even when it holds a single colour.
Plan three tones for each important colour: a light one for highlights, a mid one, a dark one for shadow. A petal stitched in one pink looks flat; with three, it gains depth.
Count the fabric as part of the palette. Ecru aida warms everything, white lets bright colours stand out, black needs light, luminous threads such as B5200. The guide to fabric and size covers fabric colours.
A screen never shows a thread's exact colour, and it exaggerates contrast. Before buying a whole palette, lay the skeins side by side in daylight, on the fabric you will stitch. Most shops are happy to let you.
Keep the palette short. Every extra thread is a skein to buy and confetti in prospect: the guide to reducing the number of colours shows how to decide. And once the palette is ready, the guide to turning a photo into a chart takes you all the way to the printed chart.