Gone Batty at the Show Dress

I spend some time at our local show each year, but instead of buying a show bag I get.... fabric! Of course 😆 
This is from a couple of years ago now, but I finally made it up.

Bring on my favourite dress pattern and it was just a matter of cutting everything out (and hoping that I had enough fabric). 

I wanted to try a different neckline, too, maybe an asymmetrical one to match the quirky pattern?

Isn't it a great pattern? I overlaid some of the pieces to make the skirt slimmer and also to preserve some of the bats whole. I'm still playing with this pattern to make it fit me.

Then I made the mistake of putting the project aside after I cut it out, caught up in something else. I pulled the pieces out a couple of months later, sewed it all together... and when I tried to put it on, I found that it was waaaaay too small.

Puzzled, I dutifully cut out two new pieces for the back and sewed the zip in without looking at it properly. The result was this:

Sure, it fit better, but that much bra shouldn't have been flashing. Grumpy, I set it down and decided to tidy my work space... in which time I found the two missing pieces that I had cut out!

Bah! Ah well, I'll use those pieces in some other dress I suppose! A bit of tweaking and the dress fit well. I played with some pieces for the back and landed on this:

I've seen a lot of cute patterns recently and wanted to cut a bat-shaped pocket out, too. 

I found some red cotton to use as a backing, sewed around the edges and turned it through. 

It worked out pretty well!

 All in all, the disaster turned into a pretty groovy dress.

It's one of my favourite outfits now. I plan to wear it later this month to give a presentation at a conference in Sydney - show off a little bit of the Territory. 

#lovelypennypatterns