Is DMC discontinuing certain numbers?

I have seen that many have wondered if DMC is going to discontinuing some shades of embroidery thread and whether it will affect Diamond Painting. I have tried to find out which shades it might be about and when these stopped being manufactured. So if you are curious about how it is, you should definitely read this post.

New colors year 2013

In 2013, DMC released 16 new colors. They were sold only in the US and after just a few months they stopped being manufactured. You can probably still get hold of these in the US, but they were only manufactured in a few months in 2013. The numbers of these were between 3880 and 3895, colors that I haven’t seen used for Diamond Painting. Most likely because they were used during just a short period as embroidery threads and only in the US, they did not get much spread.

Discontinued colors year 2015

In 2015, DMC discontinued eight colors. The story behind this is that DMC had two factories in the 1990s; one in the US and one in France. During this period, the tax on the color used was high in the US, which meant that the thread in the US was very expensive. In order to lower costs, the factory in the US did so that they found other dyes that were cheaper. These replaced the more expensive ones and they sold some as tests to see if they could replace the more expensive ones. However, the sales were bad as these colors were copies of other colors that were already sold. Within one year, sales of these substitutes were dropped. However, it was not until 2015 that DMC made it official that they had stopped manufacturing them. Which colors DMC stop producing, you can see under the heading “Discontinued colors and their replacements” further down in the post.

New colors year 2017

During October and November 2017, DMC released new colors for the first time in 14 years. There are 35 different colors and they are numbered 01 to 35. Which is a completely new number series, the previous threads have three or four digits. These colors are not going to replace any but are complement to those that already exist. This means that the total colors for embroidery thread are 500. Diamond Painting uses only 447 of these. The 35 new colors are not yet used, and there are embroidery threads that have varying colors. That is, the same thread has different color shades, they can’t be used for Diamond Painting. Therefore, only 447 colors are used for Diamond Painting. I think that when these 35 new colors get more spread and are used more in new cross stitch patterns, they will eventually also be available for Diamond Painting.

Discontinued colors and their replacements

Vad jag kan se så använder Diamond Painting säljarna ersättningsfärgerna redan. Troligtvis eftersom det var så pass lång tid sedan som de gamla färgerna fasades ut. Om du ska göra om ett korsstygnsmönster till Diamond Painting och har svårt att hitta rätt färger så kan det bero på att det är någon färg som har ersatts. Du hittar de de nedlagda färgerna här nedan samt vilka som de kan ersättas med.

As far as I can tell the Diamond Painting sellers already use the replacement colors. Probably because it was such a long time since the old colors were phased out. If you are going to redesign a cross stitch pattern to Diamond Painting and find it difficult to find the right colors, it may be because there is some color that has been replaced. You will find the colors below, as well as which ones they can be replaced with.