Micah, modified

Hi there!  After another "Seamwork Ambassador" preview of this month's patterns and a stretch of hot days in Northern California, I was inspired to mix up the Micah pattern a bit to make a more playful version for hanging around the house and running around barefoot.

For my version, I started off by raising the neckline.  I'm very short and if a pattern has an included modesty panel, that tells me a bit about the depth of the neckline!  I raised the "v" by about 2 inches.  

The original design is a simple kimono-style shift with center front and back seaming with slits up the sides.  Definitely a nice design, but for my dress concept, I cut the pattern to about hip length.  Since I was using some precious (but flawed!) Nanette Lapore silk-cotton voile, I wanted to use as much of the fabric as possible, so I used the remaining length to make gathered panels for the bottom.  It was ungodly easy, but the result is feels lot more light and summery.  The featherweight-fabric is perfect, though I did wear a silk slip under, just for a tiny bit of modesty.

After trying on the dress, the length of the sleeves felt incorrect with the otherwise playful feeling of the garment, so I cut those by about 2 inches or thereabouts (no measuring here!).

Overall, I am ecstatic about the end result.  I had been holding this fabric for a few years and this was just the right project for it.  It also highlights a bit of a fabric printing flaw that I found, interesting to me because I teach fabric science and talk about this subject so often.  Along the bottom of the back bodice, you can see that the dots are cut off (in the above photo)!  Apparently, the screen rollers weren't created properly to print the full design in one roll?  Anyway, I kind of love that attribute being incorporated in the dress.

Thanks again to Seamwork for making another wonderful staple garment pattern!