Dart Manipulation for Beginners The Slash & Spread Method

Hi guys it's Nick Varios and welcome back to Fashion School with Nick Varios. Today we're gonna slash and spread. Flat pattern making depends on previously developed patterns as a base for creating design patterns. The chosen working pattern usually is the one dart basic bodice. That's the one that we're going to use here. This is a lesson in using that one dart sloper and changing it into another useful pattern. Slash and spread is the method used in manipulating darts, putting darts in other places. That's how we manipulate them by slashing and spreading the actual pattern and sloper. I'm going to show you how to turn a one dart sloper into a two dart one by slashing and spreading. Now first you want to take your one dart sloper which is right here on manila and you're going to cut two pieces of dotted paper, the numerical pattern paper, and basically you want the paper to be about 18 to 20 inches wide by 22 inches long. You're going to use one piece of paper first. You're going to take your block and then you're going to trace it. That should be easy enough. All right now when you trace it you can't just lay it on the dotted paper willy-nilly like anything. No. You line it up because your dotted paper has a grain line actually and you can kind of tell in some of the numerical dotted paper. See the numbers and how they go up and down 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5. That is the straight grain line. So you want to line up your block which is on the fold. See it's on the fold. This is the center front. You want to line it up so it's straight right there. All right and once you do that, trace it. So that's the center front. That's the neckline. Trace. Trace your shoulder. Now go to the armhole. This is a notch. Make sure to mark it. Trace it. Side seam and then now we're going to the waist. The dart notches and then see these punch holes? You want to just mark them here and here. This one is says apex. What's the apex? That's the highest point of the bust. Now that doesn't get punched but it's there just to tell you because it really is a pivotal point in your dart manipulation. So what I'm going to do is I like to circle that and just write apex slash bust point right there. Got it? Now once you've done that, you can put away your one dart sloper. Now get your ruler and you see this dart? See these dart legs? You want to draw them right up to the apex like that. Just like that. And then you want to draw where your side bust dart will be. Now I'm going to tell you go right here. This is the armhole. That's the armpit. You want to measure two inches down. Mark it. Take your ruler and draw a line. This is your guideline. All right and do it right to the apex right there. Next thing you're going to label these points right here. Here is the side seam waist corner. You're going to label that x. This right here is b and this right here is a. These are the dart legs. So this is the dart and this goes to here to close it up. All right now we're going to show you how to slash and spread. Before you do that you want to cut this out that you've traced out. So take your pattern shears and you want to cut. Notice I'm keeping the pattern shears on the table. Okay when I cut. When you're cutting curves like this it's really really important to keep the pattern shears on the table. You do not want to lift them up. Notice how I'm using my forefinger and thumb to help me with those curves. Okay you do not want to lift this up and cut like that. No you want to cut with the pattern shears on the table. So here's the shoulder. Okay and then here we have another curve. That's the armhole. Now notice this might take practice. All right but you don't want to go choppy choppy. All right you want to try and get as smooth as a curve as you can get when you're cutting. All right right there. A good practice for curves is trace your french curve over and over again and then cut cut cut on paper and you practice cutting curves. All right we're going to finish this off. There and there. Okay nice job. So there you see I've just traced it and marked my points. Now get your other piece of dotted paper and what you're going to do is you're going to put this on top of it. Before you do that you want to mark some lines on the second piece of paper. The first one is about I would say about an inch away from the edge. Draw a line and then about two to three inches above it draw a cross grain line like this so it is perpendicular. Okay the whole point is you're going to line this up. See that it's going to come right there. Okay now that front is on the fold. To remind you of that I would take my paper and fold it right there. Sometimes a lot of students of pattern making forget that that's on the fold. Okay so this will remind you. All right so what you want to do is you want to line this up here. Now we're going to get to slash and spread. Are you guys ready? Okay so take this guideline right here, take your scissors and you're going to cut. Remember it's a one dart sloper. Not for long. Okay cut, cut, cut right up to the apex plus point. All right now go to B and cut, cut, cut, cut right up to the apex. Almost there. You're going to leave this kind of hanging. Do you see how this is hanging? Leave that hanging. Okay now you're going to line the center front over to the fold and to the lines right here at the waist. So line this up, line this up right here and you can tape it down. Okay if you want you can staple it as well but for me it's easier just to tape it down. So a piece of tape there and a piece of tape there. Got it? You still have this hanging. Do you see this? Now we're going to turn this one dart into two. Watch. You're going to see this X. You want that X to touch this line. So you're going to slash. You slashed and now you're spreading. Watch. You're spreading, you're spreading until boom. It hits the line. That's it. Stop. Guess what you just did? You created a side dart. So part of this big waist dart went into there. So now you have two. So tape this up now. Tape it there. Here. All right. I don't like the paper kind of flopping around so that's why I like to tape it. Okay. There and here as well. Okay. I think that's good enough. You can come up here if you want. All right. You see what's happening here? Now it's time to redraw the darts. Okay. So go from the apex and right here for this one you want to go three quarters of an inch down. Put a mark and then redraw your dart. Now your dart is going to be from here to here. Not from the apex. Three quarters down. You can write it three quarters down. Half an inch down from here. That's the bus point. That is your drill hole. All right. Do the same thing for this one but instead of three quarters you want to go an inch. So go an inch right in the middle. Just like that. Measure an inch. Stop and then draw your dart from here to here. So this one now is one inch and then what? The drill hole or punch hole is half an inch away. Got it? Right there. Now it's time to shape your darts. Take a look right here. This is your dart. All right. These are called the dart legs. This is one dart leg. This is the other because eventually what you do is you fold it right here and then you sew, sew, sew and you stop right there. All right. So these are the dart legs. Now a lot of times you need a shape there. How do you come up with that shape? Well here's a trick. What you want to do is find the dart point right there. Fold. Fold right there like that and then take the bottom dart leg and have it kiss the top dart leg just like that and fold up. Look at that. Do you see that? A perfect fold. Take your tracing wheel and look. Open it up and I don't know if you guys can see that but it creates little holes. That's what the tracing wheel is all about. And then you've got your dart shape. Isn't that amazing? Do the same thing for this one because right here you don't even know what the shape is down here. So take the top of your dart. Fold right there. Okay. And take the A dart leg and have it kiss the B one. Have it touch it. Fold it over like that. Okay. Take your tracing wheel once again and go over it so then you can get the shape. When you open it up you've got your shape. So take your pencil and ruler and look. You've got your shape right there. Isn't that great? There you are. All right. The next step is now you're going to put this onto manila paper to have your two dart sloper. Okay. So I have my manila paper or tag paper. This is how it comes. The bolt is running this way. Now think of this almost like a fabric bolt. Here's your bolt of manila. So the length, this is pretty much the cross grain and the way it unrolls then that is the straight of grain. So the way to fold it is like this. You come out here. Put your dotted paper that you worked on, your slash and spread, two dart sloper. Make sure it fits nice. Okay. And then so you get a good size and then fold it. Now take this away. Fold right here like that. Cut the rest of it. Don't throw away this manila. You're going to save it. Okay. For later. All right. Here's a trick to get a really nice crisp fold. Take your pattern shears and run it through a couple times. Nice. All right. That is your fold because remember the front of your pattern is on the fold, the center front. So here we are on the fold. Remember I told you to fold it so you would know. Okay. Line that up to the fold. Make sure you have a little bit excess here in the top as well as the bottom and then you're going to staple it to the manila. Okay. Now don't overstaple. That's because you're going to take the staples out. So if you put like 50 staples it's going to take you a long time to take all the staples out. So don't overstaple. Okay. Now I'm going to trim some of this excess off here so I can get my stapler in there right here at the waist. All right. Side seam. Notice I have some extra here so I'm going to come to about an inch and a half away making sure I don't actually cut my pattern. Okay. And then just staple, staple, and staple. One more right here. Okay. We're ready to cut. You got it down so let's start cutting. Take your scissors and remember do not lift them up. Follow the lines. Keep your scissors on the table. Right there. That's very good. Let's do the side seam. Come to the dart. Remember you shaped that with your tracing wheel and then side seam, straight line. This should be easy. Good to go. All right. Let's do the neckline. It's a curve line so be steady. Lift up with your thumb and forefinger and there it goes. Shoulder, cut, armhole. It's always the tricky one. Okay. You want to try and get a nice smooth line. Smooth line and there we are. Okay. Okay. Put away your paper. There you are. Now you have a couple little details. You have to notch. See the dart legs A and B? Notch them. Take your notcher and go in there about a quarter of an inch in and notch. See these little bits? That's what happens. Okay. Those are notchers. This is basically sew me to sew me. That's what a notcher is. It's giving you direction. Now you need to notch this too. Otherwise look you wouldn't know. Where is it? So by notching right there and right there it tells you listen we need to touch each other because then we can sew and create the dart. All right. You also need to notch right here. That's the arm hole right there and then importantly the center front. I'm going to turn this around so you guys can see. Right there in the center front you need to notch. So watch. I'm going to do this. You want to half notch it. So don't take the whole notch or just half. When you open that up it's a whole notch. Okay. Got it. Next look at the punch holes for the darts. Look at this. If I took this pattern I wouldn't know where the darts end. Look because there's no punch holes telling me. So that's what those punch holes are. So take your awl and right there in the punch hole. Not here but here. Half an inch away and then see there it is. So this also tells you when you can sew you can go right up to half an inch right there. Now I also like to do the apex but it's not necessary. Just to let me know that that's the apex. Okay. But sometimes you don't want to do that because it gets confused. Okay. But I just like to do that just so you know. It's a pivotal point of the apex. So basically you've done all that and now you're going to take the paper off to just have the manila paper. All right. So take your staple remover and remove. Remove. There. There and there. Okay. All right. Look at that. There you are. Now you can mark it. Circle your punch holes here and here and then you can circle this one and write apex or bust point. Do the same thing for the other side. Remember don't leave it alone because when you open up the pattern you don't want to leave this blank. So circle apex and then circle and circle. Last but not least it needs information. Otherwise what would this be? Let's say if I was a fabric cutter and I was cutting this I wouldn't know what it is. Well I kind of would because it's got darts and the armhole. I'd be like it's a front. But it's always good to know where the grain line is and give the information. Usually for center front fold we like to draw the grain line one inch away from the fold. You can use your ruler, your clear ruler, see the one inch and draw it. I'm going to eye it right here. Draw a straight grain line from top to bottom just like that. See where it's on the fold? Write c f fold. What does that mean? Center front fold. So you know sometimes you put you can put little arrows as well. Finally what is it? What is this pattern? So this is a way to tell you what it is. You can't just write it. You want to write it neatly. So what I like to do is just draw guidelines like this and then describe. So this is the two dart sloper. Got it? What size is it? Size eight. How many of these do you cut? Cut one. All right a lot of times this can also be written as an eight with a slash and a one. But this is very nice. And then finally whose is it? It's mine. Put your name. All right guys you just did it. You did the two dart sloper using the one dart and using the slash and spread method. Thanks for watching Fashion School with Nick Varios. Make sure to like, subscribe and share. And just a reminder, many of these pattern exercises are in my book, A Basic Guide to Pattern Drafting available on amazon.com.