I am an avid quilter these days, but garment sewing was my first love and I still love it. I hadn't sewn clothing for myself in quite a while, but for some reason I found myself wanting to make a blouse. I found a Butterick pattern (6085) that looked fast to sew with options for a straight fit or a curved fit. I opted for the curved fit, which meant sewing darts! I plan to share more construction tips in future posts, but for today, I want to share how I sew darts that are smooth and flat with only one thread in my machine!

There are definitely two practically identical blouses in the picture above. I loved mine so much (background) that I made one for my mother, too! So, let me show you how I made the darts. Believe it or not, this dart is sewn using only the bobbin thread! The purpose of sewing a dart in this manner is so that there will be no need to tie the threads or place a messy backstitch at the tip of the dart. Sometimes those tied threads can become untied and the tip of the dart will begin to open...impossible to happen when the dart is sewn using the following steps!

Remove the spool of needle thread from the top of the machine.
Pull up about 25" of bobbin thread from the bobbin. No need to remove the bobbin. (Below photo, left. The arrow is pointing to my blue bobbin thread. Click on the image to enlarge it.)
Bring the thread up through the presser foot and thread the needle from back to front. That's right.
Holding the slack in your right hand, thread the top of the machine beginning just past the spool holder. Make sure your presser foot is raised so the thread can pass into the tension discs as normal. Pull all the slack out of the thread from the top and let the thread tail hang freely. (Below photo, right.) Click on the image below to enlarge it.

Now we are ready to sew our dart! The fabric is folded and marked (below), and I've placed a couple of pins in the fabric to hold it in place at the machine.

The photos above show the fabric placed under the presser foot at the narrow tip of the dart. The fold is resting against the blue thread (shown better at right, near the stiletto tip). Don't allow any space between the fold of the fabric and the thread. Lower the presser foot and sew the dart. Do not backstitch here!

There! The tip of the dart is smooth and can't accidentally open at the narrow tip!

Thanks for visiting! Happy sewing and God bless! Maxie