I have a bunch of clothes I bought secondhand. Now I’m altering a Jones New York linen jacket and pants. I put a dart from the shoulder seam toward the bust (open at the end) to remove some of the shapelessness in the front and pull the shoulder in (I don’t like the overhanging shoulder look).
Being pear-shaped, I don’t want to decrease the jacket above the waist too much but I would like to shape the boxy look a bit (my bust is small). Would an open-ended dart at the waist work with linen? If not, what should I use front and back to give some shape?
Replies
If you leave unfinished seams in a dart, they may ravel...
Perhaps you could do some pleats and make it a style feature? That way you would not need to cut anything.
Or you could create a 'princes' seam from shoulder, over bust, through waist to bottom of jacket that you can use to create shape (there are some patterns with seams like that). Just be sure to finish the new seams.
Another option is to stitch the darts "inside out" and let them ravel on purpose to make it a style feature -- just saw some pricey designer clothes at a department store that did stuff like that!
Marijke
I've used open ended darts (tucks) on a lot of garments and love the shaping they offer. On linen, I would be especially careful not to take in too much, as the tighter the garment is, the more it is going to wrinkle (ah, the wonders of linen!)
Depending on the overall lines, you might want to put two small tucks on each side in the front plus two or three small tucks at the same level on either side of the back. I have found that putting darts in the back first often solves the problem so that I don't have to change the front to have the whole jacket fit much better.
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