Hello all,
I recently bought a shirt made in a fine linen which has panels of pintucks in the front where darts could be . This results in a lovely but restrained release of fabric over the bust , a nipping in at the waist and then a release over the hips .
I love the shirt but I don’t like its dropped shoulder and would like to use a pattern which has a better fit across the shoulders and collar area .I have such a pattern but It doesn’t have darts in the front which I could use to create the tucks. My question is how do I add in fabric to make a dart allowance which I can use in the pintucks without rotating out the bust dart which I need as I have a D cup, and ending up with too much fabric over the bust and the hip?
I am sure that you brains out there can help????
Replies
If you rotate the dart you still have it, just in a different place. It still molds the fabric and if the tucks are below the bust, it will be more flattering than just a side dart as the fabric won't just hang from the bust and make you look fatter. I too am a D cup and shirts and jackets that skim my body are much more slimming and flattering. Also I agree that drop shoulders are not flattering for the large bust, they tend to be looser and just make me look fat!
Nancy
hello nancy , Does this mean that I transfer the dart into the waist dart and this will still fit around the bust even though I wont have a bust dart????
You could take half of the bust dart into a waist dart. I wonder, though, if you might be better off keeping the whole original bust dart where it is and just adding pin tucks to the pattern. If there is no waist dart then the shirt hangs from the bust and is loose around the waist and the looseness could be shaped with pin tucks? You might need to do a little side seam shaping to have it sit right where you want it when the pin tucks are working. I suggest keeping at least part of the bust dart where it is. With anything b cup and over the armhole gaping thing can easily start to happen.
After I wrote my reply I saw a pattern in Burda mag that had pintucks as a detail and they also used a waist dart and top stitched it to match the pintucks. Since you have to add to the dart size for a D cup, I would agree that moving half to the waist would be a good idea and the pintucks don't take up that much material so they would probably just add some needed shaping. If there is no waist seam, use a double pointed dart at the waist, cant think of the name. Unsless the pintucks come all the way to the bottom of the blouse, then I'd sew it fromt the bottom up. This would be a good place for a muslin.
Nancy
Nancy
Thankyou all ,, I will check the burda book. I think the idea of just cutting it wider and the shaping aftethe pintucks are done might work too. I suppose that I dont want great fullness over the bust or below the waist so that is why I am wondering about the simple approach of adding into the side seam and then removing ity through the pintucks. The best thing is to have a go I suppose.
If you are doing pintucks with a foot there is not much take up any way, depends on number of tucks. These are really tiny. Are you talking about larger tucks? The pattern was in the magazine a few months ago. I really think that a muslin is the way to go, doesn't take that long to do and will work out your problems without wasting your good fabric. Also, I hope that you are doing this on a natural fabric. Much easier to do than on a polyester.
Nancy
Butterick has a pattern for a blouse with pintucks at the waist - number 3969, I bought it but haven't made it yet
Judy
Thanks Judy and Nancy. The tucks will be tiny and there will be 7 on each side .
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