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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Darts with Artist's Tape

I recently got a snippet from Colette about ways to improve your dart making skills. And I don't know about you, but I always fuss over how my darts look! No matter what I do they aren't perfect; chalk, pins, basting lines all did not result in a perfect dart.

In this snippet it said to use artists tape to mark along the dart lines. I figured, "what the hell?" and went to Joann's with my 40% off coupon to get some. After much hunting a nice lady found it for me in the fancy painting supplies (not the crafter paint the faaaaancy paint lol). I picked up a low-tack tape and was on my way.

I did the same as always, marked my darts, blah blah (won't bore you with the details) but then I used this tape and put it on the leg of my dart on both sides. And I am telling you, man did it make it easy to match up the legs in an exact manner. I then pinned the darts, pressed (I was worried the tape would melt, it did not because it is paper), and used a zipper foot to stitch. By using the zipper foot I was able to get right up next to the tape line. I made a mistake on one and went through the tape a tiny bit. I was worried I would have to unpick it because the tape would be stuck. I figured I would try to rip the tape off and if I saw it ripping the stitches I would stop. To my delight the tape came off super easily! I then pressed the dart in the correction direction and finished it off by tying the tail ends. (hats a whole other lesson I learned about darts a few years back!)

The lesson of this story: try Art tape out. It's $3.50 without a coupon. Why not pick some up on your next trip to the craft store?

**I had a question about what exactly this tape did for creating a dart. I'm sorry I was not more clear as I was typing (blame the espresso ;) ). The tape helped: stabilize the fabric during sewing and made the fabric more manageable for a precise matching of the marks, enables the dart to be tapered correctly so the end/tip of the dart did not pucker, created an excellent straight line to follow. I hope this clarifies things**

2 comments:

  1. You mean darts aren't meant to be wiggly and miss matched. I might have to give this a try.

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  2. Art supply stores also carry large rolls of art tape for even less! It's a great tool.

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