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Match thread colors

Matching maps each palette color to a real thread from a brand chart, so your run sheet names the actual thread.

Where colors live​

Your design's thread colors are the strip on the bottom bar, at the bottom left of the editor. Click a swatch to make it the drawing color, which also recolors whatever you have selected. Edit colors opens the full palette editor in a popover: add, rename, enter a hex value, match to a thread chart, reduce the palette, and Manage palettes…

The Colors panel is gone

It used to be a dockable panel of its own, which took a whole dock for a row of swatches. It moved to the bottom bar in v1.2.2. Everything it did is still in the Edit colors popover.

Deleting a color​

Deleting a color that objects are using recolors them to a surviving swatch, rather than leaving them painted in a thread that is no longer in the palette. One Ctrl/Cmd+Z reverses the whole thing. If you delete the active color, the drawing color moves too, so you are never drawing in something that does not exist.

Applying a palette​

Applying a preset palette keeps the colors your design is actually using, rather than clearing everything and orphaning the objects that referenced them.

Tell Boldbobbin which threads you own​

Open Design palettes (Edit colors → Manage palettes…, or Settings → Design palettes…) and go to the Threads tab. Pick the thread charts (brand catalogs) you own. These become your owned threads. You can also set this during the first-run wizard or in Settings → Threads.

Match one color​

  1. In the Design palettes dialog (Current tab), click Match… (or Re-match) on a color.
  2. The Match thread dialog lists the nearest threads from your enabled charts, each with a ΔE value (smaller = closer match).
  3. The sidebar groups charts into My threads (the ones you own, on by default) and All charts.
  4. Pick a thread and Confirm. Clear mapping removes it.

Match the whole palette at once​

In the Threads tab, use Match automatically to my threads. To force a distinct thread for every color, turn on Different colours to different threads: this needs at least as many owned threads as you have colors. Matching is perceptual (OKLab), so results look right to the eye.

If you have no owned threads, matching is unavailable until you enable some charts. See Threads and palettes.