DMC 155 — Medium Blue Violet

Amethyst in Cotton Form

If you have ever held a raw amethyst crystal up to the light, you know this color. Not the pale, washed-out amethyst of commercial jewelry, but the genuine article — medium-deep, saturated, blue-leaning violet with an internal luminosity that seems to glow from within. DMC 155 Medium Blue Violet captures that gemstone quality in thread. At #8B78C8, it sits in the heart of the blue-violet spectrum: decisively purple but with enough blue to give it a cooler, more crystalline character than the warmer lavenders in DMC's range.

Amethyst was once valued alongside diamonds and sapphires. Ancient Egyptians carved it into talismans. Medieval Europeans believed it prevented intoxication — the word itself comes from the Greek amethystos, meaning "not drunk." That history of mystical attribution follows the color into cross-stitch, where DMC 155 gravitates toward designs with spiritual, mystical, or fantasy themes. It is the thread you reach for when stitching tarot-themed pieces, celestial charts, crystal ball imagery, and anything that wants to suggest the intersection of the beautiful and the mysterious.

The Blue Violet Family in DMC's Range

DMC 155 belongs to a small but important cluster of blue-violets that form their own mini-family within the broader purple range. The sequence runs DMC 3746 (Dark Blue Violet), DMC 155 (Medium Blue Violet), DMC 156 (Medium Light Blue Violet), and DMC 3747 (Very Light Blue Violet). This four-shade progression gives you a complete gradient from deep to pale, all staying firmly on the cool, blue side of purple. It is one of the most useful shading families for any subject that requires cool purple: amethyst crystals, wisteria, iris petals, twilight skies, and stained glass panels.

What distinguishes this blue-violet family from the lavender family (208-209-210-211) is temperature. The lavenders carry warmth — pink undertones, a sense of softness and approachability. The blue-violets are cooler, more remote, more dramatic. In a floral design, lavenders feel like a cottage garden. Blue-violets feel like a formal garden at dusk. Neither is better; they serve different emotional purposes, and knowing which family suits your design's mood is part of the art of color selection.

Stitching with Saturated Cool Purples

DMC 155 is saturated enough to hold its own as a primary color in small-to-medium designs. An ornament, a bookmark, a small sampler — any of these can use 155 as the dominant thread color without additional shading, and it will look rich and complete. The blue undertone gives it enough visual weight that it does not need dark outlines to define shapes, unlike some medium-value threads that can appear formless without backstitching to provide structure.

On white Aida, 155 reads clean and vivid — pure blue-violet with maximum contrast. On cream or ecru fabric, the warm base pushes the thread slightly toward true purple, softening the blue edge. On black Aida, 155 glows dramatically, its medium value creating enough contrast to be highly visible while the deep fabric intensifies the violet quality. This makes it an excellent choice for designs on dark fabric where you want purple that registers clearly without resorting to the very lightest values.

For blending, 155 pairs naturally with one strand of DMC 156 (Medium Light Blue Violet) for a softened, lightened version, or with one strand of DMC 3746 (Dark Blue Violet) for a deepened shadow tone. These blended needle combinations let you create intermediate steps in your gradient, smoothing transitions between the four solid shades in the blue-violet family. This is particularly useful on higher-count fabrics where each stitch is small and hard value jumps between adjacent colors can look jarring.