Shifting Bust Darts for Plaid or Stripes

This tutorial will show the Colette Hawthorn pattern as an example, but this would apply to any bust dart that you need to shift for plaid or stripes.

Recognizing It and Why it Matters

The darts on the Colette Hawthorn are not on grain, so it looks slightly tilted. You can see that in the outline of the pattern here:

When you sew this dart with a stripe or a plaid, the lines won't match afterwards. Here you can see what happens to the plaid when the dart is off grain (left) vs. on grain (right). 

Dart on the left is original to pattern, dart on right is with shifting.

Doesn't it look so much nicer lined up? Especially right under your bust.

From Start to Finish

Here's a gif that shows you all the steps together that we'll be going through: 

Step by Step 

1. First, you need to make sure that the apex is in the right spot for you. When we shift the dart, we'll make sure it continues to point at the apex, so use your muslin or pattern tissue fitting to make sure it's good to go. 
   
2. Draw a box around the dart. Cut it out. 
   
3. Shift the box until the dart is vertically straight. Tape it down, filling in any gaps with paper. Connect the cutting lines at the waist seam with pencil (or pen if you're daring!)
   

That's it! It's fairly simple to do, and worth it for the visual appeal of having your plaid/stripes line up!

In my next post, I'll be talking about my experiments with different methods for matching plaid at the sleeves on another plaid wool dress I'm sewing (I just can't get enough!). If you're looking for a more general tutorial on how to match plaid, I recommend Lladybird's tutorial on matching plaid like a boss.