Swing Yer Dartner!

Yes.

I know.

That was a bit of a groaner for a title.

This little article is excerpted from The Dressmaker’s Guide–if you don’t have your copy, you can find it here.

Darts are a way to mold fabric to fit a 3-D body (and most of us have one of those, don’t we?) The cool thing about darts in a bodice is that, so long as two darts both point to the same body bump, we can magically “move” the fabric controlled by one dart, into the other dart forever, and banish the first bit of excess to another dimension (it’s the one where all your socks go from the dryer. Also, hairpins.)

This means that, if we have some extra fabric hanging out in the hollow of the bust, or some loose wobbles after we cut down a neckline for a new fashion style, we can “swing” that dart control into the waist-to-bust darts, and handle everything from there.

Caveat: this is a process that can ONLY be done at the muslin test stage!

To swing a dart, pin your muslin test, basted at the shoulder and sides, smooth to your figure. Don’t pull overly tight, but make everything smooth and sleek, with all the pointy ends of the darts you’re pinning headed toward the same body prominence (usually the bust point.)

The dart you’re wanting to eliminate will be pinned out forever. It is banished. Never shall the pins be removed. The fabric taken up in it no longer exists on this plane of reality (remember? Socks. Hairpins.)

Remove the test bodice, and remove the basting at shoulder and side seam so you have the front bodice pieces back to themselves alone.  You’ll notice right away that even when you take out the pins from the dart you’re keeping, the bodice won’t lay flat.

That’s because we have just a few more steps before our swinging is complete!

Carefully cut from the waist edge, right up the middle of the darts you’re keeping, to the point of the bust.

See how the bodice darts just opened wide up? If you trace the new, altered shape, and use the original dart-sewing lines with the new, expanded dart areas, you’ll get the same fit through the torso and waist, with zero excess fabric above the bust, and you’ve not changed anything at all with the armscye (even though it has a new, pretty funky curve, it still works, I promise!), neckline, or bust circumference. That former annoying excess is banished forever and ever, and you have a great shape to play with from here on out.