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Hello Everyone,

I have a some questions about color conversions. My grandmother gave me about 75 skeins of old embroidery floss from various manufacturers and I can't seem to find the right color conversion charts. Some of the floss DMC, which is fine, but then there is Coats & Clark, J&P Clark, American Thread Company and Lily.

First question is - is J&P Clark the same as Coats & Clark? The colors and numbers seem to match up.

Next - I found conversion charts for J&P to DMC, but the color numbers don't match. All my color numbers are 2 or 3 digits with letters mixed in sometimes, but the conversion charts I found all show 4 digit numbers. I am thinking that the thread is so old the numbers have changed at some point. Does anyone know if there is a conversion chart from the old to new system for J&P?

I can't find any charts at all for American Thread Company or Lily, does anyone know if they exist and where I can find them?

And lastly, do you think if the thread is this old, is it still OK to use in new projects? My grandmother has kept it wound on bobbins in an airtight box, it looks like it is in good condition and it doesn't look faded, but I don't want to use thread that will not hold up.

Thanks for any help & advice that anyone can offer!!! I would hate for all this thread to go to waste!!!!

Koko

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Sounds like you have done most of the leg work yourself. Yes, J&P Clark is the same as Coats & Clark. That's Anchor threads, too, of course.

Both Anchor and DMC have changed numbers at various times in the past, and I'm not sure anyone has successfully discovered the relation between the really old numbers and the new numbers. However, do some searching here on the forum, where this problem arises from time to time. (And don't worry, we don't mind answering the same question twice... or even three times. There are so many new members that someone might just have an answer, so it's always useful to ask.)

I think the American Thread Company went out of business in the 1970s, and were apparently so closely associated with J&P Coats as to be subject to anti-trust legislation in the '30s! (And the founders were born in Paisley, Scotland!)

I would guess that the thread is perfectly good if the colour is still good and it was kept securely. It might be an idea to use shorter lengths to avoid breakages. And as for exact colour matching, well, I wouldn't worry too much. Colours change between dyelots, never mind decades! Use these on designs where the exact colour isn't specified and let your imagination have fun.

Thank you Serinde!! I sent an email to Coats & Clark to see if they can send me some kind of conversion chart between the old & new color numbers. If they provide me with one I will post it for future reference.

Wow, if American Thread went out of business in the 70's, this thread may be older than I am!! My grandmother used to do a lot of cross stitching and embroidery, but then she moved on to knit and crochet because it was easier on her eyes. She was just cleaning out her attic and found a couple of containers full of thread, so gave them to me

I know thread weakens with age, as all natural fibers do. When it comes to sewing machine threads it is not advised to use because of the weakening but in cross stitch there isn't the strain on the thread as it is purely decorative.

Anchor and Coats J&P numbers are different from my experience though they are from the same manufacturer. Maybe that is one of those things that was not always so but in the past 10 years if a chart had Coats or J&P numbers and DMC I would end up having to cross reference my Anchor on my own to the DMC numbers. As already stated there are company closures and buyouts so all could change overnight.

So last month when I posted this, I also sent an email to Coates & Clark to see if they had a conversion chart. Today, in the mail I received a chart converting the old number to the new numbering system, and also to their corresponding DMC and Anchor numbers. I'm going to enter the information into a spreadsheet so I have it in electronic format. Is there a way to upload a document to the forum here? If not, if anyone needs the info, PM me your email address & I will send it to you.

Koko

Now that is real customer service for you. I'm very impressed.

Yeah, I was surprised, I thought that they just weren't going to respond since it was about a month since I sent the request, but I got the big packet in the mail today

Isn't that great! It's good to hear of such good customer service from a company.


It'll be a great reference if you can get it up on the forum.

OK, I can't figure out how to upload the spreadsheet, but here is the image.



If anyone wants the actual excel file, pm me and I will email it to you!

Oh that's great, thank you

How very kind of them!

That's really helpful.

Hi there folks

Been lurking for a wee while checking out all your beautiful work ~ Well done!

I have plucked up the courage to ask if any of you lovely people can help me. I have rescued a huge box of Anchor Stranded Cotton from my Granny's - they were all packed in their original tissue and boxes so are immaculate. I am hazarding a guess that they are at least 30ish years old. I would love to use them and have been searching for a conversion chart showing old 3 digit Anchor numbers to new Anchor numbers. The numbers range from around 400 to 959 and the bands have Anchor and also Clark and co Paisley on them. I have been searching all over the net and this thread is the closest I have come to finding a chart.
Any help would be really appreciated
K x x

I think this is going to be a tough one.

If I was you I would make a plea directly to the company. I don't know if any other site would have access to the older number.

I googled the company name and came up with this link for you. They have a button at the top to contact them. I hope you can find some help with your number search.

http://www.coatsandclark.com/Products/H ... +Floss.htm" target="_blank

Thanks Rose - I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.
I have gone back to the british site and sent an Email via the contact us button so hopefully they will be able to help me.
K x x

koko wrote:OK, I can't figure out how to upload the spreadsheet, but here is the image.



If anyone wants the actual excel file, pm me and I will email it to you!

Thank you, koko!

hi - I'm new to the forum and have about 50 to 75 American Thread floss and was wondering if anyone knew how to do the conversion to DMC -- thank you for any help you may be able to give

Hi Belinda, and welcome to the forum from South Carolina! I don't know if you realized it when you posted your question, but one of the first matches when I googled "American Thread Co Embroidery floss" is this very thread. If you look at Serinde's answer (2nd post in the thread) you will find an answer. It's from 2009, but if the matches were correct then, they are probably the same or close right now. DMC has made some changes, of course, but most will probably convert. What are you planning on stitching with these threads?

Carole

Has anyone found a conversion chart for "Belding Lily" floss? It was a company out of Shelby, NC and I have a couple baggies full and can't find conversion to DMC.
Thanks,
Chris

Chris,

I think, if you haven't found a conversion yet, that there is not likely to be one available.

I have never heard of the floss myself, but can offer a solution that will involve you in a bit of work if you are sufficiently motivated.
I have written a Windows program that allows you to pick the nearest floss colour from a pixel in an image, and this is the tool you could use.

Firstly, take a digital photograph of the floss/flosses you want to get the DMC equivalents for in good light, indoors or outdoors. If all the flosses you want an equivalent DMC colour for can be photographed in the same photo, so much the better. If you feel there is a colour cast to the photo, correct for it in a photo editing package (eg Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Gimp). Finally brighten the colours by 10%, as we are going to compare them to the standard DMC thread definition colours which are known to be a bit lighter than the actual floss.

Secondly
Take a look at the end of my cross stitch charting program web page, and you will find a section titled 'Thread Selection Program'. The web page address is: http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/misc/crossstitchplan.html.
If you download the program and extract it and all the other files into any directory from the zip file, direct address here (though it is also accessible from the web page): http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/dowloads/pickthreads.zip
Then run the program and press the 'Swap Entry Method' button to get the program into the correct mode. Finally, select menu option 'Edit| Change Floss Range| DMC Cotton Floss'. Now you are ready to start work.

Identify the floss colour you want in the photo editing software and copy a small-ish area of the photo to clipboard (say around 100 x 100 pixels) and paste it into the Pick Thread program. Then using the 'Eyedropper' tool in the program select the pixel that most represents the floss colour as you see it. On the left hand side of the program window under the heading 'Nearest DMC Colour' you will find the nearest DMC colour number, its description and an 'Error RMS' number. 0 is a perfect match, the bigger the number, the worse the match. Now, you may find that a DMC blend of 2 threads is a better match, this is the information given in the 'Closest Blended Colour' section.

Do this for each colour in the floss range, and you have your own conversion chart. If you could publish this somewhere, it would be great.


A different, and possibly equally useful option, would be to create a floss definition file for the flosses using the tool built into my Chart Creation program. There would be no need to lighten the floss photo in the photo editing program if you were to do this. All instructions for creating a new floss range are included in that program's help file.

I know this sounds like a fair bit of work. Well, it is.
However, it's nothing different from what I've done for the Anchor floss range included with the program, and what I'm going to do for the DMC range once I get good light so as to get my own accurate DMC range that gives a better correlation between actual floss colours and digital image colour than the existing public domain colour definitions for the DMC colours.

Regards,

Richard.