Pendrell homage- turning darts into princess seams

Right- after a mammoth pattern alteration/learning curve, I can finally reveal the various stages of pattern cutting on my Pendrell homage blouse. Exciting huh? Ok its not really but I'm quite pleased anyway.  

First -I didn't have a princess seam blouse pattern, so using my copy of How to use, adapt and design sewing patterns I took the basic bodice from the Christmas dress Woman W420 which has the standard darts, and altered it. As I mentioned in the Christmas dress post, the same pattern pieces work for three different outfits, and you have to take different amounts of each seam. Here is the basic pattern.

Here is the basic pattern, with bust dart and waist dart.
 (sorry its a little pale-I did my best with contrast but its in pencil)

To turn it into a princess seam, you continue the dart lines till they join at the bust apex, then draw up in a curve to the middle of the shoulder seam. You cant see it in the picture, but I also marked bust notches on the princess seam line, basically mark the line 2 inches above and below the bust apex, this marks the fullest part of the bust and is useful for other alterations.

You then cut along the bottom line of the bust dart (the one in my pattern didn't go all the way to the princess line so I extended it), along the princess seam and along both sides of the waist dart. Then open the waist dart by sliding the bust dart up so the cut line meets the uncut line, then stick this down (as if you'd sewed the dart)

And there you go-a princess seam pattern, if you wanted you could smooth out the curve on the waist dart area a little (if you aren't using a pattern where the waist dart goes in and out again this isn't a problem), but mine's going to get hacked about a lot yet so I'm not going to.