Generate a Curated DMC Floss Palette
Pick a theme — autumn, ocean, sunset, pastel, skin tones, blackwork — or upload a photo and the tool snaps each dominant color to the closest DMC thread using CIEDE2000 perceptual matching.
Pick a theme
Warm rust, mustard, and forest tones for fall samplers and harvest pieces.
Your DMC Palette (6 colors)
Each color snapped to the nearest DMC floss using CIEDE2000 perceptual matching.
Turn a photo into a real pattern
Once you have your palette, drop a photo into the cross-stitch pattern generator — it will use the same CIEDE2000 matching engine to build the full chart.
Open Cross-Stitch Pattern GeneratorWhat This DMC Palette Generator Does
Most DMC tools fall into two camps: a static color chart of all 489 floss colors (great for browsing, but useless when you want a coherent palette of 6–8 to start a project) and single-color matchers that find the nearest DMC for one hex value (useful when you already know exactly what you want). This generator fills the gap in the middle: pick a theme or a photo, and get a curated, internally-consistent palette of DMC colors that work together.
How it works: each theme is a hand-picked anchor palette built from real reference imagery — autumn forest photos for the autumn theme, coastal sky-and-water samples for ocean, blackwork heritage pieces for the blackwork theme. Each anchor is then snapped to the closest DMC floss using CIEDE2000, an international standard for perceptual color difference. The result is a palette where every color has a real DMC number, and the colors have been chosen to read as a cohesive set when stitched together.
For photo-driven palettes, the tool extracts the dominant colors from your image using k-means clustering in CIELAB color space (perceptual, not RGB), then snaps each cluster center to the closest DMC. Same matching engine as our cross-stitch and embroidery pattern generators — so the palette you see here is the same palette those tools would pick if you ran the photo through them.
DMC Palette vs DMC Color Chart vs Find DMC Color
The DMC Color Chart lists every one of the 489 DMC six-strand floss colors with hex swatches and code numbers. Use it when you are researching, browsing, or looking up a specific color you already know about.
Find DMC Color takes one hex value and returns the eight closest DMC matches ranked by perceptual distance. Use it when you have a specific color (from a logo, paint chip, or fabric swatch) and need to match it to thread.
The DMC Color Palette Generator (this page) returns a complete, curated palette of 3–12 DMC colors built around a theme or extracted from a photo. Use it when you are starting a new project and want a coherent palette to stitch from — not a single color, not the whole 489-color chart, but the right 6–8 colors for a specific design intent.
DMC Color Palette Generator FAQ
Pick a theme (autumn, ocean, pastel, skin tones, blackwork, and more) or upload a photo. For themes, the tool starts from a hand-curated palette of anchor colors and snaps each anchor to the closest DMC floss using CIEDE2000 perceptual color matching. For photos, it extracts dominant colors using k-means clustering in CIELAB space, then snaps each cluster to a DMC color. Output is a list of 3–12 DMC threads with codes, names, and hex swatches you can copy or print.
Yes — fully free, no signup. Generate as many palettes as you want and copy the DMC codes to a shopping list.
The DMC color chart shows all 489 colors at once for browsing. This palette generator returns a curated set of 3–12 DMC colors for a specific theme or photo — the colors that work together for one project, not the whole catalog.
Yes — switch to 'From image' mode, upload a JPG or PNG, and the tool extracts the dominant colors and matches each to the closest DMC thread. Same color-matching engine as the ArtPatt cross-stitch pattern generator.
For decorative pieces and logos, 4–6 colors. For floral and pet portrait projects, 6–10. For full photographic portraits, 10–12+. The slider lets you adjust the count from 3 to 12. More colors give finer detail but increase floss cost and the number of thread changes while stitching.
The anchor colors were sampled from real reference imagery (autumn forests, ocean coastline, vintage 70s graphic design, traditional Victorian florals) and validated against the DMC range. After CIEDE2000 snapping, the returned DMC numbers are the closest perceptually accurate matches — the same threads professional designers would pick for these palettes.
Not directly in this tool — but each color in the palette is independently linked to its DMC code. To swap one color, use the Find DMC Color page with a slightly different hex to find the closest alternatives, or use the DMC Color Chart to browse the full library.
CIEDE2000 is the perceptual color-distance formula published by the International Commission on Illumination. It measures how different two colors look to the human eye, accounting for non-linearities in lightness, chroma, and hue. Significantly more accurate than RGB distance, especially for dark colors and skin tones — which is why thread manufacturers and ArtPatt use it for color matching.
Related Tools and Pages
DMC Color Chart
All 489 DMC six-strand floss colors with hex swatches, names, and code numbers.
Find DMC Color
Match any single hex code or color to the closest DMC thread.
Cross-Stitch Pattern Generator
Photo to counted cross-stitch chart with DMC matching, backstitch, and PDF export.
DMC to Anchor Conversion Chart
Convert any DMC color to its closest Anchor floss equivalent.
Crochet Color Scheme Generator
Same idea for crochet — preview color combinations as stripes, blocks, or granny squares.
DMC Floss Checklist
Track which DMC colors you already own and which you need to buy.