Accommodating Darts & Seams in your Design

Whether you’re using machine embroidery, free-hand embroidery, or another method for embellishment, it’s likely you’ll have to work around darts. Modern Irish dance costumes are quite fitted, and darts (or princess seams) are what help us get that precise fit! However, we don’t want to see out beautiful embroidery disappear into a dart or end up disjointed. In this post, we’ll dive into how to adjust your design to accommodate darts or princess seams.

This method works both on the computer and on paper. We’re showing it digitally here, but you can do the same work offline by making a second copy of your design pieces to move or alter (mentioned periodically in the videos).

In this most basic example, we move pieces of embroidery out of the way of the dart. (Photo of dress shown under Example 2)

In the next example, we’ll use the same principles while also discussing how to handle when a dart ends in the middle of your design (bottom-right of the bodice shown below).


Here’s where things start to get dicey – when the design intersects multiple angles of the dart, or even multiple darts.


Princess seams can be treated similarly to darts, but due to their curves they require a little extra thought.


It’s worth mentioning that on front princess seams, there is a small amount of ease built into the side-front, at the apex of the bust. Our patterns have a notch above and below the bust, so the distance between them will be about 1/4-inch longer on the side-front than the center-front piece. If you have designs going right over this section, do your best to distribute your pieces evenly over this area, using the notches for reference.

Even as detailed as we can try to be with this process, precise sewing is also important! It can take a couple tries to get the dart or seam looking just right. Even stitching 1mm off the dart line can show as a glitch or disconnect, even if you did a good job moving your design elements. Don’t be discouraged – you’ve got this!

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