Digs McCall's 5247 wearable muslin, aka Enchanting Edinburgh

Last weekend, with an incipient summer cold simmering inside me, I decided I need a quick warm cover up for when the AC turns the office into an arctic wasteland. What better than to try the tweaked coat pattern, I thought? Tweaks included moving the front & back side seams 1" toward centre, raising the waistline 1", lengthening skirt by 5 cm, dropping the back neckline down 1 cm & adjusting collar length a bit for it, dropping the front 1 cm, giving the sleeves a bias cut cuff that extended well inside the sleeve so I can wear the sleeve turned down or up to show off a bracelet, cutting the first 4 cm of the pockets as one with the relevant pattern piece, and then making both sides of the pocket out of lining fabric underlined with cotton sheeting to make it wear-tough.

I used a wool twill (Scott Black & White tartan) that I'd bought in Edinburgh last fall, and lined it with a silk jacquard print of green shamrocks on a black background, from Fabric Mart.

Note to self: do NOT pick a plaid if the objective is a quick to finish project. I ended up having to baste every seam so the plaid pattern stayed put across seamlines. This included ripping out a few originally pinned seams, yes even with a walking foot, and at least doubled the time I spent on it.

Other lessons learned: The size I muslined is too large: the skirt's voluminous, which is OK, but the shoulders are also too wide, which is not. Here's where photos of one's project are really invaluable: after seeing them, I narrowed the shoulder princess seams by 1 cm front & back, and took in the waistline by 3.5". I also went back and interfaced the vent edges and the hem for a crisper look. And I tacked the facings to the fronts with invisible prick stitching.

All in all, although still on the roomy side, this has turned out to be a perfectly wearable light cover-up.