muslin
Recently I appropriated a ton of free patterns via freecycle. I ended up re-freecycling over half, there were too many for a lifetime! I finally cracked open the envelope on one of them, this Butterick top. 
I love the one with the Mandarin collar and the kimono (or Dolman?) sleeves. So I started with a muslin and cut out the size 6. Making a muslin is a fantastic idea when you are working from an unfamiliar pattern or pattern company. For examply, by now I am pretty sure what size I need for burdastyle.com or a Machiko Kayaki pattern. In this case however, it’s a good thing I started with a muslin.
Three muslins later and I had altered the pattern, changing it so that rather than have separate facings, I extended the right and left front so that it could just fold over. I extended them just so that it would close comfortably as well, because it was too tight. I also had to narrow the darts.
It had been so long since I’d make a muslin - or sewn in general - that I remembered a couple of important things:
1. BASTE - use basting stitches when making a muslin so you can just rip it right the hell back out, easily.
2. Don’t trim the seams. :( A couple of times I needed to rejoin pieces, after I’d already gotten carried away and trimmed the seams down. Blech.
p.s. in the lower right of the big photo - my new iron - I treated myself to a Rowenta. It just glides over fabric so smoothly 