A Conversion Chart for Watercolours?

Watercolours is a stunning thread. I find myself buying a color just because I think it’s pretty. But finding floss colors to go with it can be a problem. I recently got a question from a reader about finding a conversion chart for Watercolours to floss.

One doesn’t exist, for three reasons.

First, because each Watercolours shade has more than one color in it, you can’t really map a Watercolours shade to a single color of floss.

Second, the different dyers at Caron dye the shades differently. Although they are consistent from dyelot to dyelot by the same dyer, they are not consistent between dyers. That means that even if I could make a conversion for col0r X by dyer A, this may not work for color X by dyer B.

Third, because of the dyeing method there are transitional colors between the main colors. These colors happen when the dyes of two colors mix. In general, these colors don’t exist in floss, so there can be a conversion for them.

The best thing to do is to look for colors that “go” rather than “match” exactly. The way to do this is to take an actual skein of Watercolours and go to your floss, the wall of floss in the shop, or a floss color card. Decide what color(s) in the Watercolours you want to emphasize.

Then look for either a match or a color in a very similar color family in floss. If you need more than one shade of this color, pick additional shades in the same color family.

If you need a second color, pick another color in the Watercolour and repeat this process.

If you are picking out more than one color from the Watercolours be sure that you have a good balance in your piece: not too many colors, a main color and accents. You can use your skein of Watercolours as a guide for this balance.