I was wondering as to why the darts on the back of my fitted blouse, are now showing as very long?It seems I can't shorten them.In update 6.12 they were perfect.The upper dart leg goes up as far as my underam,the lower part goes as low as, past my abs.Unless Im reading the grid wrong on my side here.The waist hits the correct spot in back,front is bit below the waist level.Any advice appreciated thank you.Being a pain here lol.

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I was wondering as to why the darts on the back of my fitted blouse, are now showing as very long?It seems I can't shorten them.In update 6.12 they were perfect.The upper dart leg goes up as far as my underam,the lower part goes as low as, past my abs.Unless Im reading the grid wrong on my side here.The waist hits the correct spot in back,front is bit below the waist level.Any advice appreciated thank you.Being a pain here lol.

Your description of the back dart top and bottom position for a fitted blouse or dress is pretty accurate. The bottom goes 75% of the way from waist line to hip line.

Your back ab line is placed based on Ab Depth, so it may be above or below the bottom of these darts.

Front darts go to ab line (because in the front, shaping for the belly is needed) and in the back the hip depth is used as a reference to provide shaping based on the hips.

The back waist darts have gone to this depth for at least the last 5 years.

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Originally posted by Llantrisant:
I was wondering as to why the darts on the back of my fitted blouse, are now showing as very long?It seems I can't shorten them.In update 6.12 they were perfect.The upper dart leg goes up as far as my underam,the lower part goes as low as, past my abs.Unless Im reading the grid wrong on my side here.The waist hits the correct spot in back,front is bit below the waist level.Any advice appreciated thank you.Being a pain here lol.

Bob has given a good response, but I thought I would add a little more, from a different perspective. Once, while demonstrating the program, a fellow sewist looked at the pattern for the fitted shirt and told me the back waist darts were too high. She is a retired home ec teacher, and I thought she must know what she was talking about, so I began to look more closely at the RTW shirts with darts. Guess where the top is? At the bottom of the armhole!

Thank you both for the response,It seems to make sense, because if one has a broad back! then it would need to be high up, to take in the excess fabric.I just never noticed it so much before.

For younger slimmer figures, back darts going up to base of armhole is probably correct. I have a roll of fat above the waist so they don't work for me. I simply grab a pencil, mark where I want the top of the back dart to end (shorten dart above waist by about half). On the fabric, I only mark the top and bottom end points and the widest point at waist level anyway, so don't bother redrawing the darts (often, don't even sew them).

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Originally posted by Marilyn in Brisbane:
For younger slimmer figures, back darts going up to base of armhole is probably correct. I have a roll of fat above the waist so they don't work for me. I simply grab a pencil, mark where I want the top of the back dart to end (shorten dart above waist by about half). On the fabric, I only mark the top and bottom end points and the widest point at waist level anyway, so don't bother redrawing the darts (often, don't even sew them).

Right on, Marilyn!

It seems to me that many people think that, because they have software, they no longer need to make pencil changes. That just isn't true. The software will never be perfect for every conceivable combination that users want.

What we have is a good basic fit. Does it need pencil help occasionally? Maybe. However, think of where you start when you use a commercial pattern. How many changes do you have to make to get something that fits. For me, it is just not worth it. I would probably stop seewing if I had to adjust every pattern to fit me. I design with DS. If I want the darts to be longer or shorter than the program will allow, I just use my pencil. It take about 2 minutes.

I agree there and I have redrawn darts, or even left them out of my blouse,we do have that choice in the long run.My figure isn't a model type eighther lol.I have to be conscious about my abs in front all the time.DS allows me to do that though,which is a great option to add more ease if nessesary or remove some where I don't want it.All about choices eh?