Free DMC color chart

DMC color chart, all 454 shades

Every one of the 454 DMC stranded cotton shades, laid out in the order the printed shade card runs them, searchable by number and by name at once and sortable by number, by lightness or by hue. It is free and there is nothing to sign up to. Each swatch also carries something no other chart prints: how far two independent digitizations of the shade card disagreed about that thread, which is 25 bytes out of 255 at the median and 155 at the worst.

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454 shades
Sorts four ways
CSV and print

Find a number or a name

Number and name at once, as you type. Fragments count: 38 returns all 69 shades carrying those two digits anywhere in the number, 938 and 3891 alike, and the abbreviations the card is printed with work too — Vy Dk pulls out the 25 shades that are the deepest of their family.

Put them in

The order the file was digitized in, which is the order the printed card runs: each family kept together, palest member of it first. It is the only arrangement here that came from DMC rather than from arithmetic, and it is why 3713 rather than 150 is the first row.

How well the sources agree

Each shade carries the largest per-channel gap between two independent digitizations of the card. The 35 worst are the ones to hold against real thread before you commit a whole piece to them.

Lay them out as

Swatch blocks — the card on screenPrintable list with hex and R G B

454 of 454 shades

Shade-card order, as DMC prints it

3713
Salmon Very Light
761
Salmon Light
760
Salmon
3712
Salmon Medium
3328
Salmon Dark
347
Salmon Very Dark
353
Peach
352
Coral Light
351
Coral
350
Coral Medium
349
Coral Dark
817
Coral Red Very Dark
3708
Melon Light
3706±76
Melon Medium
3705±67
Melon Dark
3801
Melon Very Dark
666
Bright Red
321
Red
304
Red Medium
498
Red Dark
816
Garnet
815
Garnet Medium
814
Garnet Dark
894
Carnation Very Light
893
Carnation Light
892±57
Carnation Medium
891
Carnation Dark
818
Baby Pink
957
Geranium Pale
956±59
Geranium
309±100
Rose Dark
963
Dusty Rose Ult Vy Lt
3716
Dusty Rose Med Vy Lt
962
Dusty Rose Medium
961
Dusty Rose Dark
3833
Raspberry Light
3832
Raspberry Medium
3831
Raspberry Dark
777±53
Raspberry Very Dark
819
Baby Pink Light
3326
Rose Light
776
Pink Medium
899
Rose Medium
335
Rose
326
Rose Very Dark
151
Dusty Rose Vry Lt
3354
Dusty Rose Light
3733
Dusty Rose
3731
Dusty Rose Very Dark
3350
Dusty Rose Ultra Dark
150
Dusty Rose Ult Vy Dk
3689
Mauve Light
3688
Mauve Medium
3687
Mauve
3803
Mauve Dark
3685
Mauve Very Dark
605
Cranberry Very Light
604
Cranberry Light
603±71
Cranberry
602
Cranberry Medium
601
Cranberry Dark
600
Cranberry Very Dark
3806±50
Cyclamen Pink Light
3805
Cyclamen Pink
3804
Cyclamen Pink Dark
3609
Plum Ultra Light
3608
Plum Very Light
3607
Plum Light
718
Plum
917
Plum Medium
915
Plum Dark
225
Shell Pink Ult Vy Lt
224
Shell Pink Very Light
152
Shell Pink Med Light
223
Shell Pink Light
3722
Shell Pink Med
3721
Shell Pink Dark
221
Shell Pink Vy Dk
778
Antique Mauve Vy Lt
3727
Antique Mauve Light
316
Antique Mauve Med
3726
Antique Mauve Dark
315
Antique Mauve Md Dk
3802
Antique Mauve Vy Dk
902
Garnet Very Dark
3743
Antique Violet Vy Lt
3042
Antique Violet Light
3041
Antique Violet Medium
3740
Antique Violet Dark
3836
Grape Light
3835
Grape Medium
3834
Grape Dark
154
Grape Very Dark
211
Lavender Light
210
Lavender Medium
209
Lavender Dark
208
Lavender Very Dark
3837
Lavender Ultra Dark
327
Violet Dark
153
Violet Very Light
554
Violet Light
553
Violet
552
Violet Medium
550
Violet Very Dark
3747
Blue Violet Vy Lt
341
Blue Violet Light
156±55
Blue Violet Med Lt
340±58
Blue Violet Medium
155
Blue Violet Med Dark
3746
Blue Violet Dark
333
Blue Violet Very Dark
157
Cornflower Blue Vy Lt
794
Cornflower Blue Light
793
Cornflower Blue Med
3807
Cornflower Blue
792
Cornflower Blue Dark
158
Cornflower Blu M V D
791
Cornflower Blue V D
3840
Lavender Blue Light
3839
Lavender Blue Med
3838
Lavender Blue Dark
800
Delft Blue Pale
809
Delft Blue
799
Delft Blue Medium
798
Delft Blue Dark
797
Royal Blue
796
Royal Blue Dark
820
Royal Blue Very Dark
162
Blue Ultra Very Light
827
Blue Very Light
813
Blue Light
826
Blue Medium
825
Blue Dark
824
Blue Very Dark
996
Electric Blue Medium
3843
Electric Blue
995±53
Electric Blue Dark
3846±88
Turquoise Bright Light
3845
Turquoise Bright Med
3844
Turquoise Bright Dark
159
Blue Gray Light
160
Blue Gray Medium
161
Blue Gray
3756
Baby Blue Ult Vy Lt
775
Baby Blue Very Light
3841
Baby Blue Pale
3325
Baby Blue Light
3755
Baby Blue
334
Baby Blue Medium
322
Baby Blue Dark
312±52
Baby Blue Very Dark
803±50
Baby Blue Ult Vy Dk
336
Navy Blue
823
Navy Blue Dark
939
Navy Blue Very Dark
3753
Antique Blue Ult Vy Lt
3752
Antique Blue Very Lt
932
Antique Blue Light
931
Antique Blue Medium
930
Antique Blue Dark
3750
Antique Blue Very Dk
828
Sky Blue Vy Lt
3761
Sky Blue Light
519
Sky Blue
518
Wedgewood Light
3760
Wedgewood Med
517
Wedgewood Dark
3842
Wedgewood Vry Dk
311
Wedgewood Ult VyDk
747
Peacock Blue Vy Lt
3766±78
Peacock Blue Light
807
Peacock Blue
806
Peacock Blue Dark
3765
Peacock Blue Vy Dk
3811
Turquoise Very Light
598
Turquoise Light
597
Turquoise
3810
Turquoise Dark
3809
Turquoise Vy Dark
3808±51
Turquoise Ult Vy Dk
928
Gray Green Vy Lt
927
Gray Green Light
926±58
Gray Green Med
3768
Gray Green Dark
924
Gray Green Vy Dark
3849
Teal Green Light
3848±53
Teal Green Med
3847
Teal Green Dark
964
Sea Green Light
959
Sea Green Med
958
Sea Green Dark
3812
Sea Green Vy Dk
3851
Green Bright Lt
943±61
Green Bright Md
3850
Green Bright Dk
993
Aquamarine Vy Lt
992
Aquamarine Lt
3814±69
Aquamarine
991±52
Aquamarine Dk
966±54
Jade Ultra Vy Lt
564
Jade Very Light
563
Jade Light
562
Jade Medium
505±155
Jade Green
3817
Celadon Green Lt
3816
Celadon Green
163
Celadon Green Md
3815
Celadon Green Dk
561
Celadon Green VD
504
Blue Green Vy Lt
3813
Blue Green Lt
503
Blue Green Med
502
Blue Green
501
Blue Green Dark
500
Blue Green Vy Dk
955
Nile Green Light
954
Nile Green
913
Nile Green Med
912
Emerald Green Lt
911
Emerald Green Med
910
Emerald Green Dark
909
Emerald Green Vy Dk
3818
Emerald Grn Ult V Dk
369
Pistachio Green Vy Lt
368
Pistachio Green Lt
320
Pistachio Green Med
367
Pistachio Green Dk
319
Pistachio Grn Vy Dk
890
Pistachio Grn Ult V D
164
Forest Green Lt
989
Forest Green
988
Forest Green Med
987
Forest Green Dk
986
Forest Green Vy Dk
772
Yellow Green Vy Lt
3348±61
Yellow Green Lt
3347
Yellow Green Med
3346
Hunter Green
3345
Hunter Green Dk
895
Hunter Green Vy Dk
704
Chartreuse Bright
703
Chartreuse
702
Kelly Green
701
Green Light
700
Green Bright
699
Green
907±57
Parrot Green Lt
906
Parrot Green Md
905
Parrot Green Dk
904
Parrot Green V Dk
472
Avocado Grn U Lt
471
Avocado Grn V Lt
470
Avocado Grn Lt
469
Avocado Green
937
Avocado Green Md
936
Avocado Grn V Dk
935
Avocado Green Dk
934
Avocado Grn Black
523
Fern Green Lt
3053
Green Gray
3052
Green Gray Md
3051
Green Gray Dk
524
Fern Green Vy Lt
522
Fern Green
520
Fern Green Dark
3364
Pine Green
3363
Pine Green Md
3362
Pine Green Dk
165
Moss Green Vy Lt
3819
Moss Green Lt
166
Moss Green Md Lt
581
Moss Green
580±83
Moss Green Dk
734
Olive Green Lt
733
Olive Green Md
732
Olive Green
731±51
Olive Green Dk
730
Olive Green V Dk
3013
Khaki Green Lt
3012
Khaki Green Md
3011
Khaki Green Dk
372
Mustard Lt
371
Mustard
370
Mustard Medium
834
Golden Olive Vy Lt
833
Golden Olive Lt
832
Golden Olive
831±54
Golden Olive Md
830
Golden Olive Dk
829±54
Golden Olive Vy Dk
613±56
Drab Brown V Lt
612
Drab Brown Lt
611
Drab Brown
610
Drab Brown Dk
3047
Yellow Beige Lt
3046
Yellow Beige Md
3045
Yellow Beige Dk
167
Yellow Beige V Dk
746
Off White
677
Old Gold Vy Lt
422
Hazelnut Brown Lt
3828
Hazelnut Brown
420
Hazelnut Brown Dk
869
Hazelnut Brown V Dk
728
Topaz
783
Topaz Medium
782
Topaz Dark
781
Topaz Very Dark
780
Topaz Ultra Vy Dk
676
Old Gold Lt
729
Old Gold Medium
680±56
Old Gold Dark
3829
Old Gold Vy Dark
3822
Straw Light
3821
Straw
3820
Straw Dark
3852
Straw Very Dark
445
Lemon Light
307
Lemon
973
Canary Bright
444
Lemon Dark
3078
Golden Yellow Vy Lt
727
Topaz Vy Lt
726
Topaz Light
725
Topaz Med Lt
972
Canary Deep
745
Yellow Pale Light
744
Yellow Pale
743
Yellow Med
742
Tangerine Light
741
Tangerine Med
740
Tangerine
970
Pumpkin Light
971
Pumpkin
947±55
Burnt Orange
946
Burnt Orange Med
900
Burnt Orange Dark
967
Apricot Very Light
3824
Apricot Light
3341
Apricot
3340
Apricot Med
608
Burnt Orange Bright
606
Orange?Red Bright
951
Tawny Light
3856
Mahogany Ult Vy Lt
722
Orange Spice Light
721
Orange Spice Med
720
Orange Spice Dark
3825
Pumpkin Pale
922
Copper Light
921
Copper
920
Copper Med
919
Red?Copper
918
Red?Copper Dark
3770
Tawny Vy Light
945
Tawny
402
Mahogany Vy Lt
3776
Mahogany Light
301
Mahogany Med
400
Mahogany Dark
300
Mahogany Vy Dk
3823
Yellow Ultra Pale
3855
Autumn Gold Lt
3854
Autumn Gold Med
3853
Autumn Gold Dk
3827
Golden Brown Pale
977
Golden Brown Light
976
Golden Brown Med
3826
Golden Brown
975
Golden Brown Dk
948
Peach Very Light
754
Peach Light
3771
Terra Cotta Ult Vy Lt
758
Terra Cotta Vy Lt
3778
Terra Cotta Light
356
Terra Cotta Med
3830
Terra Cotta
355
Terra Cotta Dark
3777
Terra Cotta Vy Dk
3779±51
Rosewood Ult Vy Lt
3859
Rosewood Light
3858
Rosewood Med
3857
Rosewood Dark
3774
Desert Sand Vy Lt
950±55
Desert Sand Light
3064
Desert Sand
407
Desert Sand Med
3773
Desert Sand Dark
3772
Desert Sand Vy Dk
632
Desert Sand Ult Vy Dk
453
Shell Gray Light
452
Shell Gray Med
451
Shell Gray Dark
3861
Cocoa Light
3860
Cocoa
779
Cocoa Dark
712
Cream
739
Tan Ult Vy Lt
738
Tan Very Light
437
Tan Light
436
Tan
435
Brown Very Light
434
Brown Light
433
Brown Med
801
Coffee Brown Dk
898
Coffee Brown Vy Dk
938
Coffee Brown Ult Dk
3371
Black Brown
543
Beige Brown Ult Vy Lt
3864
Mocha Beige Light
3863
Mocha Beige Med
3862
Mocha Beige Dark
3031
Mocha Brown Vy Dk
B5200
Snow White
White
White
3865
Winter White
Ecru
Ecru
822
Beige Gray Light
644
Beige Gray Med
642
Beige Gray Dark
640
Beige Gray Vy Dk
3787
Brown Gray Dark
3021
Brown Gray Vy Dk
3024±59
Brown Gray Vy Lt
3023
Brown Gray Light
3022
Brown Gray Med
535
Ash Gray Vy Lt
3033
Mocha Brown Vy Lt
3782
Mocha Brown Lt
3032
Mocha Brown Med
3790
Beige Gray Ult Dk
3781
Mocha Brown Dk
3866
Mocha Brn Ult Vy Lt
842
Beige Brown Vy Lt
841
Beige Brown Lt
840
Beige Brown Med
839
Beige Brown Dk
838
Beige Brown Vy Dk
3072
Beaver Gray Vy Lt
648
Beaver Gray Lt
647
Beaver Gray Med
646
Beaver Gray Dk
645
Beaver Gray Vy Dk
844
Beaver Gray Ult Dk
762
Pearl Gray Vy Lt
415
Pearl Gray
318
Steel Gray Lt
414
Steel Gray Dk
168
Pewter Very Light
169
Pewter Light
317
Pewter Gray
413
Pewter Gray Dark
3799
Pewter Gray Vy Dk
310
Black

The number in the last column is not a tolerance DMC publishes — it is how far two independent photographs of the shade card disagreed about that thread, in bytes out of 255. One shade of the 454 came out identical in both: DMC 310 Black, the shade with the least dye in it to photograph wrongly. The worst is DMC 505 Jade Green at 155, where the two sources sit further apart than mid-gray is from white.

Screen color is an approximation of floss, not a match. Every monitor is calibrated differently, and the published color data for dyed and molded goods varies between sources — for embroidery floss the disagreement between two independent color tables runs to a tenth of the range. Use the chart to pick candidates and the physical shade card, bead or brick to decide between them.

Going the other way: a color you have, and the shades nearest it

Distance is measured in Oklab, the same perceptual space the pattern pages snap cells with, so “nearest” here means what your eye means by it rather than what a hex subtraction means.

Pick it

Or type it

Six digits or three, with or without the hash.

1DMC 3862 Mocha Beige Dark0.003
2DMC 3790 Beige Gray Ult Dk0.027
3DMC 830 Golden Olive Dk0.028

These three are not ranked in any useful sense. The gap between first and second is 0.024 and the disagreement between the two published tables about the leader alone is 0.054, so the order is an artifact of which digitization this page happens to carry. Hold all three against the card.

How to use a shade chart that admits what it does not know

Search, sort, export — and the export is where the page stops agreeing with itself.

Search the number off the skein band, or the family name
One field reads both, so 3689 and mauve arrive at the same place from different directions. Fragments are enough: two digits return every shade carrying them anywhere in the number, and the abbreviations DMC prints on the card — Lt, Md, Dk, Vy Dk, Ult Vy Dk — pull out a whole tier of the range at once. That last trick is the useful one when a pattern calls for something two steps darker than what is in the box and you need to know what DMC actually made in that family.
Reorder the range to match the question you are asking
Shade-card order is how the printed card runs and is right for browsing a family. Hue order is right when a design has a hole in it and you want to see everything DMC dyes at that angle of the wheel, including the shades whose names would never have led you there. Lightness order is right for building a value ramp, where the number matters less than the step between one shade and the next. Numeric order is right for exactly one thing: checking a written list against a box.
Export the selection, then argue with it in daylight
The CSV carries whatever is on screen after the search and the filter — number, name, hex, the separate R G B bytes and the disagreement figure — so a filtered list of eleven shades exports as eleven rows rather than as 454. Print gives the same selection on paper. Both are working documents rather than color references: the 35 shades flagged at 50/255 or worse are the ones to hold against real thread under a window before a whole piece is committed to them.

Technical specifications

Shades carried	454 solid stranded cotton shades, including the three lettered codes B5200 Snow White, White and Ecru. Light Effects, Coloris, satin, pearl cotton and the variegated 48-126 block are separate products and are not here
What DMC actually publishes	The number and the name, both official and exact. No sRGB values at all — the color of every swatch on this page is a digitization of a physical shade card and is labeled as one
Agreement between the two digitizations	Identical on 1 shade (310 Black), within 8/255 on 31, median 25/255, worst 155/255 on 505 Jade Green
Ways to reorder the range	Four: shade-card order as printed, shade number, Oklab lightness and Oklab hue angle with the neutrals collected at the end. Only the first came from DMC
What a search matches	Number and name together, as a substring of either. Two digits return 69 shades; the card's own abbreviations work, so Vy Dk returns the 25 deepest members of their families
Where the screen is least reliable	35 shades disagree by 50/255 or more between sources, and on 274 of 454 the nearest other shade in the range is closer than that disagreement
What you can take off the page	The current selection as CSV — number, name, hex, R, G and B as separate columns, and the disagreement figure — plus a print of exactly what is on screen
Network traffic after the page loads	None. All 454 shades ship inside the HTML, so searching, reordering, filtering and color matching each make zero requests

Frequently asked questions

Are these the real DMC colors?

The numbers and the names are real and exact; the colors on your screen are not, and no chart anywhere can make them so. DMC publishes no sRGB values for its floss, so every table in circulation — this one included — is somebody's photograph of a physical shade card, taken under their light with their camera. Two independent digitizations of the same 454 shades were compared for this page and they land on identical bytes for exactly 1 of them. That is the honest state of the art, and a chart that shows a smooth confident grid of 454 swatches without saying so is not more accurate, only quieter.

Which shades should I refuse to judge on screen?

The 35 flagged at 50/255 or worse, and 505 Jade Green above all of them at 155. A disagreement of 155 out of 255 is roughly the distance from mid-gray to white: the two sources are not quibbling about a tint, they are describing different colors. Filtering the chart down to that group takes one select, and it is worth doing once before any large piece, because these are the shades where a substitution made off a monitor will look wrong in thread and there is nothing in the picture on screen to warn you.

Can I print this and use it to match thread?

No, and this is the one thing to take from the page. Printing fails twice over: the RGB going in is already a photograph of a card rather than a specification, and your printer then converts that RGB to four inks on a paper whose whiteness, coating and absorbency are nothing like the card stock DMC mounts real thread on. The print is genuinely useful as a working list — numbers, names and the order you want them in — and useless as a color reference. DMC sells a card with actual thread wound on it, and that card is the only thing that settles an argument about a shade.

Why does the number from my pattern find nothing here?

Because this file holds the 454 solid stranded cotton shades and nothing else. DMC numbers Light Effects, Coloris, satin, pearl cotton and the variegated threads in their own ranges, and those numbers collide with solid ones rather than continuing from them — the variegated 48 to 126 block in particular reads exactly like a low solid number and is a different product. If a chart key says a number this page does not have, check which line the pattern is written for before assuming the number is a typo.

Why is black the only shade the two sources agree on exactly?

Because black is the one shade with nothing in it to photograph incorrectly. Every other entry is dyed cotton reflecting some part of the light it is under, and the differences between two photographs — the lamp, the exposure, the white balance, the angle the strands lie at — land on the color. DMC 310 has no such surface to disagree about, so both digitizations bottom out at the same values. It is a useful piece of trivia and a useful reminder of the direction of the error: the more saturated and the more mid-toned a shade is, the more room there is for two honest photographs to differ.

What is the number in the last column, exactly?

It is the largest per-channel difference, in bytes out of 255, between the two published digitizations for that shade. Zero means both sources wrote the same three numbers; 25 is the median across the range, 31 shades sit at 8 or under, and the tail runs to 155. It is a disagreement between sources rather than a manufacturing tolerance, so it says how much confidence the swatch deserves and nothing at all about how consistent DMC's dyeing is.

Is nearest-color matching against this chart reliable?

It is reliable enough to shortlist and not to decide, which is why the lookup on this page returns three shades and a verdict on whether their order means anything. The measurement behind that: the median gap between a DMC shade and its closest neighbor in the range is 0.023 in Oklab, and the median disagreement between the two source tables about a single shade — read as conservatively as the data allows — is 0.027. The noise is larger than the signal, and on 274 of the 454 shades the nearest neighbor is closer than the sources' own uncertainty. Any tool that names one DMC number for a color and stops there is reporting a coin toss as a result.

About DMC numbers, and why nobody can publish their colors

A DMC number is a product identity, not a color. It names a recipe, a mill and a place on a shade card, and the thing it names is dyed cotton, which reflects whatever light the room supplies. That is the root of the problem this page is built around: DMC has never published sRGB values for its floss, because there is no honest way to publish them. The company’s own answer is a physical card with real thread wound onto it, sold precisely because a printed or displayed color cannot do the job. Everything else in circulation — this chart, the ones bundled with pattern software, the ones printed in magazines — descends from somebody photographing that card and writing down what their camera said.

Two such digitizations were compared shade by shade for this site, and the result is the column on the right of the list. They produce identical bytes for DMC 310 and for nothing else: 1 row out of 454. The median disagreement is 25 out of 255 and the extreme is DMC 505 Jade Green, where the two sources are 155 apart on a channel. Put that beside the range itself and the consequence is sharp: the median distance from a DMC shade to its nearest neighbor is 0.023 in Oklab, while the median uncertainty about where a shade even sits is 0.027, read as conservatively as the data allows. On 274 of 454 shades the noise is wider than the gap. This is not an argument against matching a photograph to floss — it is the reason the cross stitch pattern maker and the needlepoint pattern maker emit a symbol and a count for every color rather than trusting the swatch to carry the information, and the reason the same nearest-color search is far less fraught on Perler bead patterns, where the manufacturer molds the plastic and the code on the bag is the color.

So use this chart for what it is genuinely good at. It answers “what did DMC make in this family”, “what is two steps darker than 3346”, “what is the number for the one called Antique Violet” and “which shades do I already own” — questions about the catalog, which is exact. It does not answer “is this the color of my sofa”, and it will not pretend to. When the number in front of you is from the other big range rather than this one, the Anchor to DMC converter handles that separately and for a different reason: there the uncertainty is not a camera but a substitution somebody chose by eye. Drills are numbered against these same shades on the diamond painting color chart, and if the destination is a machine rather than a needle, the PNG to DST converter is where a color list turns into thread stops.

Product and company names shown here are the trademarks of their respective owners. Photo2Pattern is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of them.

Where the shade data lives

Nothing you type here leaves the tab. The arithmetic runs in JavaScript on your own machine — there is no server to send it to, no account to sign in to and nothing stored between visits. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.

There is no image on this page and no lookup service behind it. All 454 shades are compiled into the HTML you already downloaded, so every search, sort, filter and color match runs against data that is already on your machine — the page works with the network switched off after it has loaded.