All about dress darts

I should have taken my mother's advice all those years ago and made my way to art school. Not for painting and drawing because that frustrates me, but to design, because of all my sewing and crafting pursuits, it's the conundrums and solutions that please me the most. The working out of the workings. I find it absolutely fascinating!

So ... I printed out my free V&A pattern for the gorgeous dress in the last post, pasted it all together, and cut it out...


Then pinned it to a finely adjusted Madge

Looks good doesn't it?

Now Madge, give us a twirl!

.... Houston, we have a problem! .... can you see?

Not only is the armhole far too big, but the back sections of the pattern are a) back to front, b) too big by a long way (I mean a very very long way, not just the usual discrepancy between dress form and body) and c) the instructions don't make much sense...

So.. back to the drawing board, and this is the bit I really really like.

First thing to work out after drawing a new block, is where exactly the darts are? The front bodice is made up of only 3 sections with only 2 miniscule bust darts in the top middle section, under the bust. The rest - and there must be more to acheive the perfectly contoured shape, are hidden. I knew that there must be closed darts involved, but in order for darts to be closed, other darts must be made - and then either closed again or hidden in seams. Think of shuffling orange segments when one is missing - another always takes it's place. Where are they?


I won't bore you with the details of the very circuitous cutting and pasting (think Blue Peter) route which led me to the conclusion that what we have here, is infact, a French Dart.

A French dart combines shoulder and waist darts and I could have avoided hours of snipping and sellotaping by following three simple steps 1) Close the shoulder dart of the block forming a wide dart under the bust 2) cut the sleeve, neck and waist portions along the chosen lines of the pattern 3) close the waist dart and trace each piece with the darts closed (except the two bust darts which must be left). The darts then become integrated within the cut, and all you will see in the finished dress, are beautiful smooth pieces of fabric.

Having taken the long route round, I understand the shortcuts much better than I would have done. Which is nice.