If you don't have a good selection of DMC or other floss at home, go to a craft store where there are plenty of colors. Choose 12 colors that are your colors. You might choose a rainbow of colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink), a selection of neutrals (black, white, gray, brown), a monochrome palette (baby blue to deep navy), or just an assortment of colors.
Keep these colors together and work with them. Is there a color you always avoid? (This yellow doesn't go with my other colors!) Switch it out. Maybe a color that you simply must include got left out.
Embroider a project using only these colors. Does one stick out and drive you crazy? Are there any you didn't use? Did you need a color you didn't choose in the beginning? (I love to stitch flowers and I have 6 greens, but no flower colors!) Adapt and change.
Go a step further and narrow these colors to 5. Work from only these colors for a few days. What works? What doesn't? What changes need to be made?
What other crafts you do? Can you find these 12 colors in yarn? In paint? In markers or colored pencils?
Knowing your favorite or most used colors can save you money since you can buy only those colors and know you will use them. Ever bought fabric that you got home with and the color just wouldn't work for anything? Wouldn't it be great to buy a supply and know that color will be used?
You might want to expand the colors to 20 if you need more colors to work with or, perhaps, you decide your just right grouping of colors is 8. Adjust and refine to make it work for you.
