Darts are our way of creating 3d shapes on paper, but how can you transform those darts in the bodice blocks once the pattern has been drafted? In this article I will show you some dart manipulation techniques so you can play around with different ideas and designs.
Darts are our way to create 3d shapes on paper, and when drafting the basic foundations, they are always placed in the same place, that doesn’t need to be the case by using dart manipulation. There’s 3 ways of doing that, let’s look into them
Front and back darts can be transferred to any location from a pivotal point without affecting the size or fit of the garment.
Darts can also be used to create specific silhouettes by dividing them into multiple openings and treating them as single design units.
The darts don’t always need to be used to contour around the body, they cal also be treated as added volume or details. Some designs include tucks, pleats, flares or gathers.
There are some rules on where the tip of the darts should end for the front pattern:
This is done so the edge of the dart is less pointy as bigger cup sizes normally use bigger darts.
Now that this is clear, let’s look at every technique individually:
A dart can be transferred to any location from a pivotal point without affecting the size or fit of the garment. The pivotal point is the edge of the dart, in this example for the front pattern, the bust. There are two ways of transferring the darts:
The slash method: You relocate the darts by cutting through the pattern. The bad thing about this option is that you need to draw the pattern multiple times. This is shown in the example below:
The pivotal transfer: In this case you pivot the pattern in sections instead of cutting through it and transfer the pieces separately. This option is for more advanced designers and needs less iterations.
This next technique uses the darts in a decorative way. Darts can also be divided into multiple openings and treated as a single design unit
It is a group of darts that vary in length, positioned next to each other
A group of darts that are spread out from a focal point
They are parallel darts and you can do that by creating parallel lines to the end points
Darts that cross the centre front of the garment. To draft these, you’re going to need the full bodice block
These resemble asymmetrical darts because they cross the centre front but they intersect with each other
By connecting two darts you can separate the pattern into pieces. An example is the princess seam
For the case of the silhouettes, the separation line doesn’t need to go through the bust point. An example is the princess seam that goes from the waist to the armhole. In that case, these silhouettes are not considered dart equivalents anymore.
It’s all about having fun and playing around with the position of the darts. Remember that the darts can be straight or curved and you can combine this technique with the ones we will explain below, so dream big!
Until now we’ve only talked about darts to create shapes and that are drafted to be sewn closed, but there are other techniques that don’t require to close them fully or at all. Here are some examples:
Until now we’ve been talking about things to do with darts but what if you don’t want any darts at all? There are a couple of solutions that will work for both front and back:
Remember that there are specific foundations that already remove the darts and the extra ease is distributed in a way that will cause the least amount of gaping. I would advise you to choose one of those foundations instead of trying to get rid of the darts by themselves.
And this is everything on how to transform Darts in the Bodice Blocks. If you want to continue learning how to modify your top pattern, check the tops 101 article.
