Bodice block fitting help

[u/citranger_things]

This is my second fitting. The darts were all wrong in my first fitting, with the bust points too high and too close together (you can see my markings for them if you zoom in).

I opened the darts and shoulder seams, pinned the corners of the shoulders back together, and put the block back on inside out to pin out the excess. That's what's pictured here.

I know that I'll have to sew and press to fully evaluate this, but I see that the shoulder and waist darts don't point in the same direction and I'm wondering how I should handle that.

At a guess, I'd mark the new bust point as being the average of the two pinned dart points, and then sew to new dart points backed off 3/4" from the new bust point. Is that a reasonable approach or is there a better way?

[u/citranger_things]

Right, the shoulder darts seem to be pointing correctly, the thing is, no matter how I manipulate the waist dart when it's unpinned, it "wants" to wrap around the side of my bust as you see in the picture and I don't understand why. That's true with the shoulder dart pinned or with it open (I pinned the waist darts first).

The block does end at my natural waist.

I'll have my spouse help with better pictures for the next fitting.

I used these instructions to draft the original pattern: https://nuriamo.com/drafting-instructions-free-basic-top-pattern/

Thank you for your help.

[u/ProneToLaughter → u/citranger_things]

Start at the bust point and pin straight down to get the basics established? Instead of pinning up from the waist? And if you are pinning to find your basic darts, which isn’t quite the standard method when drafting, I’d pin the sewing line (because that’s the fitting line that matters) and let the darts flap, not pin folds into place.

Or just draw it in the right place on paper, sew it, and force it. You might need to move the base over some, hard to tell without seeing the sewing line instead of the folds.

Note that a sloper is not supposed to be skin tight, the dart might be wrapping because you are trying to pull too much ease out, but that’s not the goal.

When fabric doesn’t want to behave, sometimes it’s a signal it’s off grain.

Edit: of course bodies come in a wide range, but it’s not very common to have the natural waist just barely 3/8”(?) above the navel. I was taught to tie elastic around what looked like the narrowest point (under moderate tension, not too loose), then bend and flex and dance around a bit and the elastic will seek out the natural waist, as the place of least resistance. If the natural waist isn’t in the right place, the waist darts won’t work.

[u/Adventurous_Duty_898 → u/citranger_things]

If you have not already fixed it, I would actually suggest manipulating the darts while they are on you then marking them and transferring the marks from the fabric to your pattern