Eliminate front waistline darts

In other words, “No, belly darts!”

Hi Sewing Friends:

Sue said her waistline darts on her skirts and pants were not flattering on her round tummy.  She wanted to know what she could do to make her skirts and pants look better in the front.

If your front bulges out immediately below the waistline, waistline darts just don’t work.  Your fullness is right under the waist band, not at the end of the dart.  Here is the simple change that you need to make.

For this figure type, don’t sew the front darts.

Change the darts to soft gathers or ease all across the front.  This detail will minimize the body curve since the fabric is distributed evenly all across the front.

If the darts are not wide enough to give you soft ease all across the front, add fabric to the front side seam at the waistline and taper down to nothing at the hip line.  Sometimes, an extra 1/2 inch added at the front waistline is just what you need to do the trick.

The round curve fills out the garment just below the waistline so it doesn’t look like you are wearing a gathered skirt.

Try it!  It just makes sense!  Where you have more bulge, you need more fabric.

To Your Sewing Success,

Marian

Front waistline darts

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Fitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.