One dart can be good. Two darts can be better. More darts may be better yet. Only the normal restrictions of good design set the limit to the number of divisions of the dart control. Sometimes the amount of dart control is just too much burden for a single dart. It produces too great a bulge. It greatly interferes with the continuity of the fabric design. It throws a seam line very much off grain with straining and puckering of the material as the result. From the standpoint of fit, almost any combination of darts is better than a single dart. The more darts, the more opportunity for gradual fitting. From the standpoint of fabric design, a division of dart control reduces the unpleasant breaking of design units. From the standpoint of grain, a division of dart control can make the seam lines of two adjoining sections more compatible. DIVIDE AND CONQUER There are several ways in which dart control may be divided.

 

METHOD I–Divided Control Any amount of the original dart control can be thrown into another position in the pattern as long as it starts on a seam line and extends to the dart point. One of the most frequent divisions of the dart control is a waistline-underarm combination (Fig. 42). In this design, the underarm dart is partly hidden by the position of the arm and the waistline dart is so reduced in size that the break in the fabric design is minimized. 1. On the cut-out bodice-front sloper with the cut-out dart locate the position of the new underarm dart-anywhere from 1-1/2 inches below the armhole to 2-1/2 inches above the waistline.

Mark the point A (Fig. 42a). (Too close to the armhole will interfere with the setting and fitting of the sleeve. Too close to the waistline makes the dart a French underarm dart, which generally does not share honors with any other dart.) 2. Draw a line from A to the dart point (Fig. 42a). 3. Slash the new dart line. 4. Close PART of the original dart. The remaining control is automatically shifted to the new dart (Fig. 42b). Generally, most of the control remains in the waistline dart; a lesser amount is shifted to the underarm dart. S. Complete the pattern by adding all the necessary signs, symbols, and notations.