Today is Dart Day! Hooray!
OK, now that I have that out of my system, I want to share with you a couple of little tricks I’ve picked up at night school. Some of you will undoubtedly already know them but they’re not common knowledge.
Pattern makers don’t bother with time saving measures for home sewing. However I’m yet to meet a home sewer who liked making darts. There are many ways of marking them, and all are tedious. All involve a lot of fiddling around, visually checking from one side of the fabric to another to make sure that all the marks line up. Or thousands of pins. And it can be so hard to get them to the same length.
Professional sewers don’t have time to spare and they can’t afford to unpick and start again, so they use a combination of notches and drill holes. It takes much less time, and it goes together better. You should try it too! You will need a tailor’s awl. They’re very, very cheap.
First of all: what are you doing cutting around those crazy little diamonds in your patterns? It’s not accurate and it slows you down. Just cut clear around your pattern and then make notches no deeper than half the seam allowance. Seriously. Don’t be scared of damaging your garment. Unless you’re using a flimsy fabric like silk chiffon, you won’t.
Try it, really. In all your sewing. Notches are awesome. Diamonds are annoying. OK, on to the dart. First notch the tops of the dart.
Then get your tailor’s awl. Stick it in through pattern and fabric, 1cm (1/2 inch) above the apex of the dart. Really, it’s OK! The awl is so sharp that it won’t tear your fabric. It might break a thread but more likely it will just push threads out of the way and make a mark that will slip back into place with a little bending of fabric. Besides, you are using the awl inside the dart. The marked fabric won’t ever be under stress and it isn’t part of your garment. It’s more like seam allowance than anything else.
Now the fun part! Fold the dart over on itself as usual. Isn’t it easy to line the tops up? And all you need to do to make sure it’s lining up straight is to get the awl mark sitting flush with the fold.
Sew the dart as usual, starting with the notches and sewing past the awl point by that 1cm or 1/2 inch. The last few stitches should only catch one thread. I could have done better in the example below, but it’s good enough. Tie the threads off and press.
Now, go forth and conquer!
October 11, 2009 at 2:04 am
Fantastic! That is much easier…I will have to try this!
October 11, 2009 at 2:47 am
This is awesome! I do the notches that way already, but the awl trick will save tons of time and pins!
October 11, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I’m totally going to have to find myself and awl now! What a great trick, thanks so much!
Do you have an idea when the dart is in the middle of the item, no notches at the edges of the fabric but actually in the body of the garment?
October 11, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I think I know what you mean, like at the waist of a dress…. it’s a little trickier but what I’d do is mark awl points at 1cm distances inside the pattern points, then sew around them leaving the 1cm as a margin. I will think it over (we haven’t covered that in class) and add photos if I can figure it out.
October 16, 2009 at 12:15 am
Thanks – I knew there had to be a better way.
When you make the pattern do you cut it on the sewing lines or the cutting lines (ie. do professional patterns have seam allowances?)
October 16, 2009 at 12:42 am
Hi Alice! All pro patterns have seam allowances, if anything pros are more careful as they have to rely on others at different stages.
January 6, 2010 at 9:35 am
This is absolutely brilliant.
January 6, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Thanks so much, this is really useful, I find it so time-consuming to make darts!
January 6, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Neat short cut! Thanks so much for sharing
January 6, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Funny … the other day I was thinking about how much I love doing darts! But this is definitely a faster way that I’ll try. And once I quit cutting triangles for notches and started actually “notching,” I wondered what was wrong with me all that time! So much easier and neater.
January 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I already did the snips into the triangles but pushing that awl in is such a fantastic idea..thank you!
January 13, 2010 at 10:37 am
Hey, I have a degree in fashion design, and I have never sewn with home patterns, only with ones that I have made. When I read this post I was like “what is so hard about making darts” and then when I got to the bottom I realized that it had to do with the home sewing patterns, which I have never used. (duh) 🙂
January 13, 2010 at 10:40 am
lol erica — my teacher thought the same thing! “Why are you all scared of making darts” she asked — until we showed her how domestic patterns are made up. She could not believe that a person would be nuts enough to use thread as a marking device.
January 14, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Fabulous..thanks
January 18, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I always love shortcuts. Thanks!
January 27, 2010 at 6:43 am
I sew, I sew, sew off to work I go! This is the greatest idea I’ve read or seen in a long time! I always notch, but never awl!
Awl…golley!
February 4, 2010 at 10:05 am
I was interested in your post about sewing darts. As a home economics teacher for 30 years I’ve seen lots of terrible “dimples at the end of boobs” darts! An old home ec teacher taught me your method of sewing darts 35 years ago, except she started at the point– put the needle down one thread away from the fold. Using the hand wheel, make 4 stitches parallel to the fold, then gradually taper out to the stitching line, continue to the end. You can either backstitch or tie a know at the wide end but be sure to knot at the point. This method eliminates those ugly dimples!!
I love the awl idea! Thanks for your info. Good luck with the wedding dress—talk about stress!
February 4, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I would love to see a diagram of the way it is explained by #17 comment.
Thanks for this tip I am in the process of sewing stacks of bags that have 4 darts in each one so its good to have a simple way to get them just right 😉
February 16, 2010 at 7:55 am
I have always used this method ( because I love to find the quick way to do things. Like Margaret (# 17) I always start my darts at the point the same way she does.
February 22, 2014 at 12:51 am
Just a small correction: You mention marking above the apex of the dart, but the picture shows the awl 1 cm below the apex. (The apex is the ‘top’ of a dart – the point bit – regardless of which way it is oriented.)
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