Good Morning All!!! Playing around with darts is something I have enjoyed from the first moment I began to learn anything about pattern drafting. I'm sure you've seen pictures like the one below, interesting, but intimidating for sure. The picture gives ideas, but no instruction about how to actually move the darts around. It also seems rather dated. But, take a look at the picture below, a lovely vintage Vogue pattern, right out of the 1940's. The dress was lovely then and now. Now take a look at this dress. Same idea as above, but with a very modern take. Here's another idea on creating dart interest. Notice that the darts are actually sewn so that they show on the outside of the garment. The middle dart radiates to the bust point, but the other 2 are above and below the bust. Here's another idea of creating interest with darts. Once again they are sewn to the outside of the garment, and extra interest was added by inserting leather. To create the skirt below, the darts were incorporated into the princess seam lines. The darts along the outside panels offer nothing more than interest. The dress below shows how the darts of the bodice were divided and then formed to radiate from the waistline over the bust. The design was repeated in the skirt where the skirt waist darts were rotated to the side seam and then flared out over the hips. Here's another lovely example of radiating darts creating interest with this Decades of Style pattern. With the dress below, all of the darts were rotated to the shoulder and developed into tuck of flange, which works beautifully with the draped back. Below is a wonderful example of darts that create an illusion of fit. The top is a Marcy Tilton pattern. There is a slight amount of fit at the waistline, but the darts give the illusion of more fit than there actually is. Here's the flat drawing of the blouse. Just a lovely use of dart manipulation. You can find the pattern HERE if you are interested. It's a style that would look great on just about every body type. Here's another fabulous use of dart rotating. Darts were rotated to create the princess seam line and then moved into the neckline. A dress that at first looks very simple is really quite complicated. Great design! The dress is from the Reem Acra Spring 2013 collection. The entire collection, although 2 years is old, is lovely wand well worth a look. If you would like to give rotating darts a try, just google "dart manipulation" and you should be able to find how it is done. It's basically quite simple. Get a basic bodice, draw in a line where you would like a dart to be, cut on that line and then close up the existing dart. Like magic a new dart will open up! Hope your week is off to a lovely start! Rhonda