My daughter finally taped together her jumper pattern (from my pattern drafting software) and when we made it up in some navy gabardine I got for cheap from trimfabric.com and she tried it on, we decided that the fabric doesn't have enough interest itself to carry the straight line and needed some vertical darts for shaping so it doesn't look like a navy blue paper bag. Of course, we didn't ask for darts when designing the pattern, so I am pinning them to fit her.
Problem is, she has a "pooch" at her waistline and the narrowest part of her waist is actually above her waistline. Do any of you more skilled patternmakers know if it will look funny to have her waistline darts about an inch or so above her waistline so that she can have some shape to this jumper, or if it would look so bad that it would be better to have notably smaller darts whose apices hit at the exact waist? We are making this to build her a basic work wardrobe and I don't want it to look "homemade" but rather "handmade," and I am still learning myself in this regard (and I also don't care as much as she does, because she is already self-conscious about her weight and all) and just don't know.
TIA, Melinda