Moving Darts - and another hint or two

Pattern - Love Notions Sonata Dress
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - Apparel cotton from Fabricland
Skills - Adjusting a pattern

The latest pattern from Love Notions is the Sonata - the perfect dress for summer.  It's flattering, loose and yet semi-fitted with its empire waist, fits sizes XS to XXXL and comes with 4 sleeve options and 4 bodice sizes.

The attractive neckline also has a couple of options:  you can have the facing on the outside for a contrast or face simply on the inside with topstitching on the outside which is how I did mine.

And to give you the best fit - it has darts!  Darts are what give the Sonata its shape.  And just as it's important to match your full bust to a pattern's bust line, it's equally important to make sure the darts fit your unique shape.

The first time I had to move a dart I was pretty nervous!  However after doing a few I feel a lot more confident.  Plus I was surprised at how easy it actually is.  So here are the adjustments I had to make so that my bodice fit my shape.

The first thing I had to do was establish that the bodice was going to be long enough for me.  Love Notions patterns are drafted for an average height of 5'5" and I'm 5'8".  The bodice is supposed to come to about 1" to 2" above the natural waist.  After holding the piece against myself and seeing that I was going need a little more length as well as having to move the bust dart down, I decided I needed to add 1" above the dart.

I placed the pattern piece on my cutting mat, lining it up against a vertical line and taped near the bottom.  Using my rotary cutter and rule, I sliced across the bodice, moved the piece up 1", keeping it lined against that vertical line and taped it to the cutting mat.  Taping it to the mat ensures that my pieces aren't going to move on me.

Then I added added a strip of paper, taped it in and sliced off the extra paper.  I was ready to move the darts.

I held the adjusted front bodice against my body so that it was about 3/8" over the shoulder seam of my top and lined up against the middle of my body.

Using a pencil, I marked my apex - that's the most prominent part of my bust - usually the nipple.

Apex marked, I could now plan out the movement of the darts.  I could see that I was going to have to move the bust dart down about 1.5" and the waist dart would need to be lowered about the same amount and moved slightly to the right.  Tami's clear instructions in her patterns are what gave me the confidence to make my adjustments so I followed her directions.

First I cut a box around the bust dart and moved it down so that it was pointing to my apex and just slightly above it - as it had been to the pattern's apex.  I taped it in place and filled in the open spot with scrap paper.

Now it was time to move the waist dart.  It only needed to be moved slightly to the right but it needed to be lowered 1.5".  First I established the new point and drew legs to that point.

Then I cut out the dart and moved it slightly to the outside filling in the open spot with scrap paper and trimming the edges.

And that's all there is to it!  I now had a bodice front that matched MY shape!  If darts have you concerned, don't be worried.  They're surprisingly simple to move.  And isn't that just the most amazing thing about being able to sew your own clothes?  You finish up with something that fits YOU!

Now another couple of hints to help make your sewing experience as easy as possible. Since I was planning on sewing my facing to the inside of the bodice, I serged around the outside edge of the facing.  After stitching it in place and clipping the curves, I understitched around the neckline - except for the V.  If you're not familiar with understitching, check out the blog post before this which explains it fully.  Understitching makes it so much easier to turn the facing to the back and not have any of it showing.

I used that serging line as my guide for the topstitching.  Lots of pins held the facing in place and I simply did my topstitching from the wrong side in the centre of the serging line.

Love Notions' Sonata is a great pattern to try out these tips.  You'll get a lovely dress that takes you into summer and one that is uniquely adapted for you.  And if you need any further assistance, you know that we are always ready to guide you on the Love Notions Support Group in Facebook. You can get the pattern through my affiliate link below.

Love Notions Sonata Dress

To Understitch Or Not?

I didn't enjoy high school sewing - it was basic and boring and I dropped out as soon as I could!  However, sewing is in my blood - my grandmother was a real whiz, my grandfather was a Singer dealer and genealogy showed me a long line of seamstresses in my background - so I had to give it another try.  I took sewing in night school a few years later and learned a LOT!  And one of those lessons was the importance of understitching.

So what is understitching?  It's a line of stitching close to the seamline on the facing (or bias tape) side which prevents your neckline from rolling.  It keeps that facing where it's supposed to be.  It reinforces the seam - makes it stronger and less likely to fray with woven fabrics. And it makes turning that neckline (or sleeveless armscye) just so much easier.

I wanted to see what the real differences were with necklines understitched and not understitched so I cut 2 XS necklines from Love Notions' new Harmony blouse.

It calls for a facing of 1/2" single fold bias tape on the neckline.  I was careful while stitching down the bias tape to follow the curve of the neckline - not to straighten it while sewing - as this will cause stretching and the neckline will not lie flat if this happens.  You can stay stitch the neckline before sewing on the bias tape to prevent this, but I was lazy and wanted to get the job done - so I was careful!

I stitched the bias tape to both necklines to make a proper comparison.

Next, I understitched one neckline.  I brought the seam to the facing side and stitched slightly less than 1/8" from the seamline while holding the seam to the facing side.

I took both necklines to my iron.  The understitched neckline was so much easier to iron!  Most of the work had already been done for me by the understitching.  The other neckline took more work to make sure that the facing didn't show.  It seemed to me that the understitched one also lay flatter.

Finally, I topstitched both necklines.  (And wouldn't you know - I ran out of thread while topstitching the understitched one!) The understitched one on the right definitely lay flatter.

After ironing, both necklines lay flat, but I could see where a bit of facing was peeking up on the non-understitched one and the neckline wasn't as smooth.

Conclusion?  If you want the neckline to be as trouble-free and smooth as possible, definitely take a little time and understitch it!

And want to try your hand at understitching?  Love Notions has a couple of great patterns that are easy to sew and you can use my affiliate links below to get them if they aren't already in your inventory.

Love Notions Harmony Blouse
Love Notions Cadence Dress & Top