489 DMC floss colors, searchable by number or name. Tap the ones you need to build a list.
Showing all 489 colors · Skip the color grid
These swatches are approximations. DMC publishes no official screen values, so every chart online, including this one, is compiled from published readings. Ours were cross-checked against a second reference before being used. On top of that, thread catches the light in a way a monitor cannot show, and no two screens agree with each other. Use this chart to find a number, compare families and plan a palette. When you are about to spend money on shades that sit close together, check them against a physical DMC card first.
* The colors DMC added in 2017, numbered 01 to 35, are read off DMC's own published chart for that range rather than measured like the rest, so they are marked with an asterisk. Compare them to their neighbours with a little caution.
DMC stranded cotton is the reference thread of counted cross stitch, and nearly every pattern you will ever buy lists its colors as DMC numbers. That number is an identifier and nothing more: 310 is black, 311 is a navy blue, and there is no logic connecting them. What does hold is that shades of one color tend to sit near each other, and the names spell out where each one falls, from Light through Medium to Very Dark.
The abbreviations on this chart are DMC's own. Lt is light, Md or Med is medium, Dk is dark, Vy is very and Ult is ultra. Once you can read them, a color key stops being a list of numbers and starts telling you how the design is shaded.
Planning a project around a palette? Work out how much thread each color needs with the thread calculator, and what to cut with the fabric calculator. Have a color in mind and need the nearest thread? Try the color to thread matcher. New to reading a chart at all? Start with the beginner guides.
DMC is a trademark of its owner. My Cozy Cross Stitch is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by DMC, and thread numbers and names are used only to identify the products they refer to.
They are close, but treat them as a guide rather than the truth. Every screen is calibrated differently, and floss has a sheen and texture that no monitor reproduces, so a thread almost always looks slightly different in the hand. For choosing colors you are going to buy, especially close shades in the same family, nothing replaces a physical DMC color card.
The number is just an identifier, not a code you can decode: 310 is black and 311 is a navy blue, with no relationship between them. Shades of the same color usually do sit together though, which is why 3799, 414, 415 and 762 walk down a range of greys. The name is the more useful clue, since DMC labels its shades Light, Medium, Dark and Very Dark within a family.
They are shortenings DMC uses on its own charts. Lt is light, Med or Md is medium, Dk is dark, Vy or V is very, and Ult is ultra. So Pewter Gray Vy Dk is the very dark shade of pewter grey, and Dusty Rose Ult Vy Dk is darker still.
This chart covers all 489 solid stranded cotton colors, including the 01 to 35 range DMC added in 2017. The specialty lines are not here: Color Variations, the variegated 4000 series and the Light Effects metallics change color along the thread or rely on sheen, so a single swatch cannot represent them honestly.
That depends on your stitch count, fabric count and how many strands you use, not on the color itself. As a rough guide one skein covers somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800 stitches at 14 count with two strands. Our thread calculator works it out properly from your own numbers.