DMC 113 — Variegated Antique Mauve

Antique Before You Even Stitch It

Some threads earn the word "antique" in their name. DMC 113 doesn't just earn it — it embodies it. This variegated mauve shifts through a range of muted, greyed pinks that look like they've already spent fifty years hanging in a parlor, quietly aging into something more beautiful than they started. That quality makes it almost uniquely suited to reproduction work, vintage-style samplers, and any project where you want the freshly stitched result to look like a treasured family heirloom.

The color range of 113 moves through territory that's hard to describe precisely because it avoids pure anything. It's not quite pink, not quite mauve, not quite grey — it occupies a muted middle ground where those colors overlap. The greyed-down quality means this thread has virtually no sweetness to it. Where DMC 107 (Variegated Dusty Rose) still reads as definitively pink, 113 has shed enough saturation to feel genuinely neutral in many contexts. You could use it alongside browns and taupes in a sampler border and it wouldn't look out of place.

That neutrality-within-pink is a rare quality in the DMC range, and it's why reproduction sampler designers reach for 113 regularly. Historical samplers from the 18th and 19th centuries used naturally dyed threads — madder root, cochineal, brazilwood — that produced warm pinks which faded over decades into exactly the kind of greyed, antique rose that 113 replicates right out of the skein. Instead of waiting two hundred years for your stitching to develop patina, you can start with it.

Variegation in the Service of Realism

The variegated nature of 113 serves a different purpose than it does in brighter threads. In a vivid variegated pink, the color shifts create decorative interest — pattern, movement, visual energy. In 113, the shifts are subtler, moving between values that are already close together, and the effect is less about pattern and more about texture. The slight variation mimics the uneven fading you see in antique textiles, where some areas caught more light and bleached more than others. It's variation that reads as authenticity rather than decoration.

This makes 113 particularly effective for backgrounds and fill areas in vintage-style designs. A solid mauve background looks deliberately chosen; a variegated one looks like it happened naturally, like the fabric itself has a history. For band samplers where different motifs sit in horizontal rows separated by decorative borders, using 113 as a background or fill thread ties the sections together with a cohesive, aged quality.

On fabric choice, natural linen is the obvious partner. White Aida can make the antique mauves look oddly clinical, the bright white ground contradicting the thread's whole aesthetic. Cream Aida is better. But natural linen — with its warm, flax-colored background — is where 113 reaches its full potential. The fabric and thread look like they belong to the same era, the same world. On 28-count or 32-count linen over two, 113 produces the kind of subtle, muted beauty that makes people lean in to look more closely.

Companion Colors and Palette Building

Building a palette around 113 means embracing the muted. Pair it with DMC 3726 (Dark Antique Mauve) and DMC 3727 (Light Antique Mauve) for a cohesive family of greyed pinks — the solid threads provide anchoring clarity while 113 adds tonal movement. For a fuller reproduction sampler palette, bring in DMC 611 (Drab Brown), DMC 3781 (Dark Mocha Brown), and DMC 3011 (Dark Khaki Green). These earthy companions reinforce the antique character and create palettes that look pulled from a museum textile collection.

For cottage-style florals, 113 works beautifully as a background texture thread in a garden scene. Let the brighter flowers — DMC 3350 (Ultra Dark Dusty Rose), DMC 223 (Light Shell Pink), DMC 3688 (Medium Mauve) — carry the foreground interest while 113 fills in softer, recessive areas. The variegation keeps these background areas from looking flat without competing with the focal flowers.