Due to our varying bodyshapes, sometimes the apex of a bust dart will hit you in the wrong place. If you find the bust dart is sitting higher than your bust apex, or lower than your bust apex, then you will need make a pattern adjustment to change the height of your patterns bust dart.
(Please keep in mind that sometimes a bust dart will hit you in the wrong place, in addition to other fitting issues – which may mean that you need to do either a FBA or an SBA rather than simply changing the height placement of the dart.)
As part of our Banksia top sewalong I thought it might be helpful to show how to do this really easy adjustment. So here we go!!
Just to make things a little clearer i’ve just drawn over the bust dart in blue, to distinguish it in the photos.
Draw a box around your dart. It doesn’t really matter where you draw the box specifically, but I find it easiest to draw a line from the dart apex straight to the side seam. This line should be perpendicular to the grainline. Next draw a line straight down from the dart apex, parallel to the grainline. Draw a line from the bottom dart leg, perpendicular to the grainline to finish off your box
Now mark where you want your new dart apex to be. In this example i am moving the dart 1″ downwards, so I made a mark 1″ below the dart apex along the vertical line drawn. If i was going to move the dart upwards, i would have marked above the original dart apex, inline with the vertical line.
Cut out the box, and shift it down until the dart apex meets the new dart apex. Tape in place, and tape more paper behind to fill in hole.
Fold along the dart legs and true the side seams.
Voila! You have moved your dart successfully!
