Friday, January 22, 2010

Are Darts My Friends?

I made a very rough muslin of Kwik Sew 3617 tonight.  I think the front of the top is fine.  I was very proud of my no-dart FBA.  I also did a nice job of tissue fitting.

When I looked at the back view -- uggh.  It's very similar to this:



Are darts the answer for fixing that pool of fabric?  I've piled all of my reference books and all my shirt patterns with back darts in the bed for some late-night reading.  In the meantime, please let me know if I'm on the right track.  Back darts in a knit top seem odd to me, but that's the only way I can imagine a fitted shirt fitting me. Since I plan on wearing the shirt out and not tucked in, I need to explore every option.

5 comments:

Faye Lewis said...

I really don't know much, just starting to delve into fitting and fixing myself, but wouldn't that problem call for a sway back alteration? I really think that vertical darts in that area would be only part of the solution.

NuJoi said...

Thanks. Do you know of a good resourse for a step-by-step tutorial of that alteration?

knitmachinequeen (KMQ) said...

I just had an idea. What if you made a dart out of the pooled fabric. Well not a dart but what if you measured it and actually took the extra fabric out on the pattern. I don't exacting know how to explain what I have in mind but the extra fabric needs to be removed. If you can picture taking out an amount of fabric in the center back that allows the side seams to stay the same lenght as the original pattern. Mull that over and try to make some since out of. Let me know if that gets some ideas swirling around in your head. I really like your blog.

Anonymous said...

I think your top needs a sway back adjustment too. Basically you take a tuck out of the middle of the back and take the most out in the middle of the pattern piece tapering to nothing at the sides, therefore you won't lose length in the side seams. You will need to re-draw your grain line as the adjustment pulls it off-grain.
The Palmer/Pletsch book Fit for Real People has a section on adjusting for a sway back.

Go here and partway down the page is a bit about sway back adjustments.
www.theslapdashsewist.blogspot.com/2009/05/questions-and-answers-swaybacks-and.html

and here is an article on many different types of pattern alterations.

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs_c/c-228.html

Hope that helps.

NuJoi said...

Thanks, Sue!