As your thread stash grows, keeping things organized can become a challenge. First, you need to figure out a thread organization system that works for you. From thread bobbins to floss drops, there are a wide assortment of thread organizers available. Once you have figured out your storage system, the next challenge is keeping track of what you have in your collection to prevent purchasing duplicates of colors you already have or making sure you have enough of each color for your upcoming projects.
While Cosmo embroidery thread is steadily gaining popularity in the United States, DMC remains the dominant thread brand, which means that many stitching charts are written with DMC thread numbers and organizational resources tend to only be available for DMC threads. Since we are big fans of Cosmo floss here at Snuggly Monkey HQ, a couple of years ago we created a DMC to Cosmo Conversion Chart that includes all 501 colors of both DMC and Cosmo to help our community more easily convert charts from DMC numbers to Cosmo numbers. Many stitchers in our community have made great use of the conversion chart over the years and we are happy to be able to provide this free resource for everyone.
After receiving many requests over the years, we are happy to share a companion to the conversion chart - the Cosmo Inventory Tracker!
The Snuggly Monkey Cosmo Inventory Tracker is a complete list of all 501 Cosmo Solid Colors in numerical order that is also color matched to the actual thread colors. This reference chart is intended to help you keep track of your thread stash more easily. We opted to organize the chart in numerical order rather than strict color family order to make it quicker to find the thread number on the chart. To help explain why the numbers at the end of the chart are all different colors rather than by color family, let's take a quick look at the Cosmo thread number system.
For the most part, the Cosmo thread number system is very logical. In general, color families are numbered from lightest (the lowest number) to darkest (the highest number). For example, a very light tan would be number 305 and the darkest shade of brown in that same color family would be number 312. That is pretty straight forward, but then how do 3311 and 4311 fall between 311 and 312? To answer that let's dive a little deeper into Cosmo's history.
Cosmo embroidery thread was launched in 1950 by Lecien Corp of Japan with 195 colors. Over the course of the last 73 years over 300 new colors and shades have been added to the collection, so that as of 2024 Cosmo now offers 501 solid colors. That is the same number of thread colors as are currently available in the DMC line, but not necessarily the same colors. For more information on color differences between DMC and Cosmo be sure to read our post on converting between the two thread lines. As shades were added to existing color families, Cosmo came up with a way of adding them into the existing numbering system by adding a "2", "3" or "4" in front of the number that the new shade comes after.
Using the brown color family from the photo above as an example, in the original collection of shades of brown the color 308 was the next darkest gradation of the color 307. Some years later a new shade that fell in between 307 and 308 was added to the collection, so that new shade was given the number 2307. Similarly 309 and 310 were the two most similar shades of brown until a new shade that fell between those two colors was developed and that new shade was given the number 2310.
Let's say that a new shade was added that was darker than 2310, but still lighter than 311, to keep with the logic of this number system the new shade would be called 3310. In the chart above the original gradation was from 311 to 312, but two new shades that fell between 311 and 312 were added over time so those new shades were named 3311 and then 4311. You may be wondering what happened to 2311... Just as new colors are sometimes added to the collection, colors are sometimes retired as well. When a color is no longer in production, that color number is retired and removed instead of re-assigned to a new color.
You will find this number system throughout the Cosmo color chart. Thread number 2343 falls between 343 and 344, and thread number 2762 falls between 762 and 763 and so on. Generally, this is how the Cosmo thread numbering system works, but there are some exceptions.
In recent years, Cosmo added 40 new colors to their collection. While several of those colors fall within existing color families, Cosmo opted to number the new colors 2001 - 2040 instead. And then there is thread number 4300 which is a red that does not fit in the yellow color family of the 300s and is just an outlier. But for the most part, there is logic behind how Cosmo assigns thread numbers.
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