stretch - how not to do it

To be honest, I had almost forgotten that I even had SEW U Home Stretch on my bookcase, until I started seeing a lot of tshirts and tops appearing in MMM12 and then it clicked.  I've got a stretch book.  I could do stretch..  Yes, I can.  I'm going to make a boat shirt! So off to the fabric shop I went on Saturday, with the intention of replacing this tshirt.  Unfortunately there was no blue and white stripe so I ended up with a very very soft pink and grey sort of stripe.  I got home and got out the book, had a quick read and then instead of following the pattern, changed my mind, and decided I was going to make a cool bat wing shirt with thin arms, and with that,I  started cutting into the fabric.  Forget a pattern, who needs it!   It's true it didn't quite look right, the arms a bit thin and the wing, perhaps going slightly the wrong way and not really the right shape and the whole thing looking a bit short; but I ran that fabric into the overlocker like nobody's business.  I could already see myself prancing around in my new top..."Where did I get it?  Oh I made it myself!'
After sewing up one side, sense started to return and I removed myself from the machine to check out the sleeves.  Mmm, this isn't right, I can't even get my arm in.  Thin arms alright.  Arms for a stick man.  A short stick man at that. Not good.
I immediately took the scissors to the arms and cut them straight off.  No point dwelling on it. The fabric wasn't the most expensive in the world but it wasn't cheap either so I decided to cut out the side seam sewing, snuck back over to the bookshelf, retrieved the book and started to see if any of the original pattern pieces might fit on what I could salvage.  I had only bought a metre rather than the required yard and a half which the pattern calls for so it was going to be a struggle.
Diligently, paying very close attention to the instructions, I cut out the front and the back using the boat top pattern (a bit short, yes) and then just like that, I was completely over it and put all the pieces into a plastic bag and threw it in the stash cupboard.  And that's where they stayed until today.  But that's a story for another day!