In the previous article, I described how to remove waist darts from a pattern, and today's article is on a similar topic - it deals with removing bust darts.
The specific type of the dart (to the armhole, side seam, neckline ...) doesn't matter, in all cases, the procedure is practically the same.
Draw a vertical line (a line that is parallel to the centerline of the garment) from the top of the bust dart downwards.
Cut the pattern piece along your line and rotate the detached piece of the pattern around the top of the dart so it “closes” the original dart. This will create a new dart that starts at the bottom edge of the piece. The procedure is the same, even if you have a dart of a different kind, as I mentioned earlier…
Put the modified pattern piece on a large piece of paper so that you can redraw it.
Extend the bottom edge of the seam.
Make a small mark on the armhole about 1 cm from the side seam.
From this point, draw two lines - each leading to one of the lower corners of the new dart.
This will give you another dart - "auxiliary dart". Cut out the inner part of the auxiliary dart so that you can further modify the piece.
Prepare another large paper and place the modified pattern piece on top of it.
Rotate detached part of the piece to “close” the auxiliary dart.
Redraw the piece again, but omit the lines of the bottom edges, just mark where they start.
Finally, draw a curve of your new bottom hem. If the bottom hem seems too rounded, you can extend the side seam a little to make the curve of the bottom hem less curved.
Here you can see the original piece (dashed line) and new piece (solid blue line) in one picture. Well - this is what my model looks like, your modified pattern piece will probably look a little different. It depends on the size of the pattern, the size of the bust dart, and the overall shape of the piece.
And that's all. I hope that this article was helpful to you. You can find other tips & tricks here:
If you want to know how to remove darts from a skirt/pants pattern, click here:
How to remove waist darts from a skirt/pants pattern
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Have a nice day, Petra
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