Oh, those back waist draglines are so not pretty! Back draglines often occur due to the curvature of the spine or the roundness of the shoulder blades. Natural body lines may be deceiving and could result in fabric excess along the back waist area of your patterns. There are several options for fixing this problem. Let’s try this second option to reduce those back draglines in the waist area.

Check Pattern Balance First

Before going into this correction, always check if the pattern is balanced. So often, the back armhole is too low compared to the front armhole, which should be checked before you make this correction. That can actually fix a big part of this issue as a starting point. To review pattern balancing, here are the videos about balanced tops and balanced coats and jackets.

This option often doesn’t eliminate them entirely; it depends on the curvature of the spine. However, it can help in combination with the yoke correction as in the last video, or it can be a build-up to the following post for adding a center back seam.

Steps to Fix Back Waist Draglines

1. Choose Dart Placement: Choose where you want your vertical darts to go in the back body. As a start, you could take the Apex to Apex measurement as the distance between the darts at the top point.
2. Pin Excess Fabric: Pin the amount needed to eliminate the back draglines as much as possible.
3. Mark the Dart Shape: Mark the pattern in the location you pinned. Your dart line will be a fish-eye shape. Your dart should stop about 1” (2.5cm) below the bust line.
4. Convert to Princess Seam (Optional): You could continue on to make this into a princess line if you wanted. This is up to you as the designer.

Again, always check that armhole depth first between front and back bodices to make sure they’re balanced!

This is the build-up for the next option of adding a center back (CB) seam in combination with the darts or princess line.

This information and more can be found in The Fitting Book. Order your book today through the link below.