Lessons

Lesson Info

Creating Darts

We're going to show the darts on both the bodice front and the bodies back of the silver dress pattern on the front we have three darts under each bust and we have one up the back on each back bodice piece there are also darts on the skirt both front and back of you be so if you're making that view you also want to be making those starts as well so first thing that gather all your tools we want to have our water soluble pencil and it's really important to make sure it's water soluble because though we're making all of our markings on the wrong side of the fabric it's really still you know obviously at this point it would be a real bummer if it was an inky penn and it didn't have it wasn't water sybil and it's soaked through to the front that would really be super sad so it's really a good idea make sure that it's a water soluble a pen or pencil and then it comes off or washes out with these um I like to use my little ah ruler to make all of my drawings with on dh then it's obviously a ...

good idea to have a pencil sharpener with you as well because we're gonna have to sharpen it numerous times and we want to have our pins so I have my bodice front piece here I've actually already sewn one set of the darts uh under the bus and we're going to sew the other set the peace has been opened because this is cut on the fold so I only have this pattern piece the half for the entire piece and I've pinned it down just in some key points here to secure it in place and I'm going to mark my three darts down here you can see that I have actually line marked them in a red sharpie so that I can see very clearly which lines I need toe transfer from my pattern piece to my fabric and that's essentially what we're doing is transferring these marks onto my fabric but I think marking them as you can see here there's ten sizes and three darts all kind of coming together so it's really helpful to be able to say your lines really clearly um I like to take a pin and put that pin right in the apex of the dart the dart is the job of the dart essentially is to curve the fabric around your body right our bodies are curvy and so by folding and stitching the fabric in place we're making little three dimensional tuck's which will then open to release into our curves whether that's your hip or your buster the back or the shoulder um so it's important that we mark the's accurately eso that it's being folded to fit that part of your body so I like to put the pain and the apex now the apex is the dot where the point of the dark comes together and then there's the legs, which are the two lines that come off of it towards the edge of the fabric. So put a pin in the apex, and I like to just then peel the fabric or the pattern piece back and without releasing the pin from the fabric just like to make a little dot with my pencil right where the apex is going to be, and I'm going to do that on all three of these little darts being really careful to just make a little dot right next to where the pin goes in. I don't want to transfer where the legs are onto the fabric, and all I like to do is peel the pattern piece back a little bit and make a little line right where it intersects with the edge of the fabric, so I've got the apex and the legs marked, and now I can take the piece off because I need to now draw those lines just like they're drawn here. I need to now draw them onto the fabric itself, gonna take my pencil again, gonna put it at the apex, but my ruler up against n lineup this bottom with laying where it intersects with the edge and draw that line in place. Just rotated to draw the other leg and repeat that on the other two pieces are on the other two darts obviously you want to make sure you're using a pencil that you can see really clearly on their fabric so I'm using this pink water soluble pencil on my gray fabric so there's my three lines just like I had on my fabric earned my pattern piece now transferred onto my fabric so from this point what I need to do now is actually fold the's right sides together so that I can stitch along the line when I like to do with these little three said I like dependence many of my darts is possible by making the whole sylvia dress is many darts is I can sit down so them all and then unp in them in press all of them so but because these three are really closely put together I can't really pin all three of them at once I can penn the outer too and then come back and and so in pin the middle once that's what I'm going to do here I'm going to just grab the fabric and write it that apex I'm folding the fabric and I'm putting a pin perpendicular to the apex going to turn it around and I'm gonna line up the legs and I'm gonna put my pins through the line and confirmed that it's also through the line on the underside I want the head of the pin facing the apec so I can pull them out easily while I'm sewing and for a dart this long two pins is a really great number, but most starts I try to do a minimum of three pins because the first pin you're going to have to basically take out the minute you sit down in your machine and you want to make sure that the distance is really held in place so that they don't shift and you're really sewing through both lines, but the starts too short to do three pin, so we'll go with two pens. I'm going to repeat that on the other dart on the outermost point, full the fabric, put the pin at the apex perpendicular, line up the legs, stick a pin through the line and confirm that it's through the line on the other side. If it's not, you could just shift the fabric a little bit because you really want that stitch to go through both lines and then put another pin in that line, so it's thrills I have to the two outer ones marked and pinned, and the middle one. I'm going to leave for the moment because I want to sew these and then repeat that on the center one, so when we go to so the dart, we're going to be sewing from the edge of the fabric towards the apex that's why have the pinheads facing the apex? I can pull them out? We're going to use a regular stitch length at two point five, I'm lining up my needle right on my chalk line and again, I'm going to take that first pin out and sink my needle down in, so everything is stabilized. We do want a backstage at the very beginning, so I'm going to go forward a few and back with you to secure it in place. I'm now going to just stitch along that line and I know because of how I pinned it that it's going through the line on the opposite side as well gonna stop roughly three eighths of an inch before the apex pull out my pin and turned my stitch link from two and a half down toe one and I'm going to sew the remainder at that one point. Oh, such link and go right off the edge of the fabric and I'm not back stitching or nodding it or anything like that. I can cut the thread right up against the edge and you can see here that I'm sewing right along that line and then it gets nice and tight because I reduced the stitch length and believe it or not, it doesn't pull out, it doesn't unravel or anything like that. If I back stitched or not of the threads right there at the apex that can create a bump and a spot where we definitely don't want to bump right there at the apex of our dart way really just want the dart toe look like a seam that ends in the middle of our government way don't want itto make any weird puckers or anything like that should just look like a full that comes to a stop so I have the outer too both zone and now I'm going to fold and pin the center dart just in the exact same way that I did before pin the apex first pin the legs with the heads of the pin facing the packs so we're going to sell this exactly the same way that we saw the other two were going to start at the edge of the fabric we're going to start so with our two point five stitch links and do our backstage the reason that we're using that one point oh stitch length at the apex is because it's a really tight short stitch length so it won't come open and undone the way that it would if it were a longer stitch length it's essentially the equivalency of nodding it off or backs to chain it's just that it's really really tight so we're going to reduce that to one point oh and just so right to the apex trim are threads and there are all three you can see the difference right there pressed versus not pressed. So these are the three that I just sewed, and these are the three that I sewed previously, but before we press them, we're going to so one of the darts on the back of the bodies because it's shaped a little bit differently is actually shaped a little bit more traditionally because these three little darts together or not, something you're going to see very commonly. So we're going to put that guy inside before we go to press it, and we're going to repeat what we just did, but on the back bodice peace so this bodice peas there's, two back pieces and you can see here this one I've already sown the start, so this is the dark where about two so and you can see it here on the pattern piece it's one long dart up the back and that just reduces the fabric in the back and also the curve at the center. Ah, back top, but the neck helps reduce the bulk of the gaping at the neck, so those two things together sort of helped bring the fabric into shape it around the curve of the back, the natural shoulder curve, eh? So we're going to be doing this dart right here up the center back that was already done so we're going to repeat that process, fold our turner fabric around with the wrong side of and you're going to encounter this I did this on purpose so that you guys can see how different this is if you have to go the other direction pattern pieces are printed so that one side is printed one side's not so they're going to be times like right here where it's going to be prince side down and it's going to feel a little bit awkward, but one of the things that's really helpful is if you've done like I did and you can see here you can see the sharpie of the apex and the legs through the fabric or through the paper, so we'll do just like we did before and secure this in place just in a few key spots to keep it in place while we're marking our dart. We don't want to secure it down here because we do want to be able to pull this back just like we did on the other one so I can see where my apex is right there and I'm gonna put the pin in just like I did on thie other darts killed us back and make that mark is going to make sure you guys can see what I'm doing here at the apex I'm going again peel this back and make the marks where the legs air going to intersect with the end of the fabric I can move my pattern piece away my pencil is still good and sharp put it at the apex and with my little ruler draw that dart you can see the start start is totally different than the other ones we just did it a nice big long time but the process of selling and is going to be exactly the same we're going to grab it at the apex and at the legs and folded we're going to put our pin perpendicular to the dart itself with through all the fabric we're going to line up the legs and put the pin through both layers right through the line making sure not see here it's not actually right on my line so I'm gonna un pin that and just shift the fabric a little bit so that when I go through is actually right on the line and now this start is much longer so I'm gonna put three pins and again making sure that it stays on the line because it can shift as you go up right there it's off a little bit making sure it's right on the mark so this is going to be sewn exactly the same way we're going to start at the edge of the fabric to our back stitch sew up towards the apex and reduce to a one point oh stitch link well, I'm gonna stop again about three eighths of an inch before the apex reduce my length toe one so right to the apex trim my threads and you can see now I have the start up the back next thing we have to do is press them. Once we've sonar darts now, we need to press them. He always want to reference the instructions to make sure you're pressing them in the right direction. My pattern pieces in the instructions here, where it steps three and four for pressing and sowing the darts. But if you want to reference your instructions, I like to press my the's bus starts because they're pointing up. I like to press them towards the side seams if you were doing a traditional bust dart that came towards horizontally, those were always pressed down so that excess fabric is down and not up on top of your bust. So we're going to use our pressing him to take the place of our bus, because as you can see here, it's no longer a flat shape because we've sown these starts into it. So we want to fit that right under there to take the place of where our bust is going to be one of smooth at all out, and we're very simply going to be pressing all three of these. Towards the science seem we don't want to make any puckers or points at the apec so you want to make sure it's nice and smooth and that you are just pressing them to the side you can see him giving the side a little bit of pressure as I'm holding it in place and then I'm gonna do the same on the right side over the fabric make sure that your fabric can take on iron right on top of the face some fabrics can't so you can see him sort of molding right around the edge of the pressing ham and there it is pressed on both the front bodice all right then we're going to press the back and the process is exactly the same so we only have one long dark to press and it's certainly less curved than the one in the front but we want to still do the same principle where we use this little bit of curve and were pressing it towards the side seam you can see him again giving this a little bit attention and working with that curve and then flipping over again and just pressing along there we really just want this dart toe look like a seam that comes to an end so you really should just see that it's just stopping so we just have the seam that just stops that's the idea we don't want it to be bumpy or puffy or anything that, other than just a nice, smooth spot that comes to an end. So we're going to repeat that on both of the bodies back pieces, all the six starts on the front. If you're making view be, there are four darts on the front skirt and two darts on each back skirt. So there's still more darts to be done if you're doing bubi. But if you're doing view a than just do the bodice, and we'll move on to the way span.