{"id":459,"date":"2013-06-25T06:01:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T10:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailysew.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2016-08-03T11:23:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T15:23:50","slug":"sewing-darts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/sewing-darts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewing Darts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darts are magical. They make a flat piece of fabric take shape. They can blend in to the garment or stand out as a design feature. I admire a well placed dart. I do not like a pointy dart, or one with a pucker and those boo – boos can easily happen to your darts if you haphazardly sew them up. Here’s the trick to avoiding puckers and points and it doesn’t take any longer to sew a beautiful dart as it does to sew a sloppy dart.<\/p>\n

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Place garment piece flat, wrong side of fabric facing you, and locate the dart point (green and white thread marks in the photo above) and dart leg notches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bring the two dart leg notches together (right sides of fabric facing) and pinch\/fold fabric so that the dart point mark is on the fold line. Pin in place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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With a straight edge and preferred marking tool (I use a mechanical pencil) draw a line from dart leg notch to the dart point mark.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sewing line is now clearly visible. While you can sew darts with out marking a guide line it is advisable especially if the dart is prominent in the garment. With a guide you will have better accuracy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sew darts from the wide end to the point.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The last two to three stitches should only be catching a couple threads. Do not sew off the edge. That will result in a point. Also do not back stitch at the point. That can result in puckers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Do not back stitch at the dart point. Instead knot the thread tails.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Use a straight pin to help guide your knot as you tighten it so it is laying just beyond the point.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The knot has a little distance from the last stitch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Press all your stitching before opening the seam allowances or pressing darts to the side and the first press is always in the opposite direction from how you stitched. In a dart this means I press from the point toward the wider end of the dart. Try not to press beyond the dart point.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Now lay the dart on a curved surface like a tailor ham, sleeve roll or a rolled up towel. Pressing on a curved surface will give shape to the piece you are working on. Darts are designed to help the fabric go smoothly over a curve (bust, hips, elbows) so pressing on a curved surface helps get the shape into the garment piece. Press the dart, the pinched out fabric, toward the center of the garment (vertical darts) unless directions tell you otherwise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Front bodice with four darts. After pressing you can already see the shape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Darts are easy but they do need a little attention when you sew them. Give them a little respect and they will flatter your figure like no elastic can.<\/p>\n

Please let me know if you have any questions on darts. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darts are magical. They make a flat piece of fabric take shape. They can blend in to the garment or stand out as a design feature. I admire a well placed dart. I do not like a pointy dart, or one with a pucker and those boo – boos can easily happen to your darts […] Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272,275],"tags":[66,52,41],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sewing-clothes","category-sewing-tips","tag-darts","tag-garment-construction-2","tag-pressing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/how-to-sew-a-dart-feat.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EZxn-7p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}