Jolly Holiday dress+cummerbund tutorial

So, here it is! The Jolly Holiday dress that I vowed to make. Actually, it pretty much got made that next day, but then we were waiting for the hat to arrive, and then Sadie didn't feel like modeling/eating candy....blah dee blah. I am super happy with how it turned out! I used this dress as my guide.

She looks pretty darn cute in it, I've gotta say.

Of course, the circle skirt is very spin-worthy!

I love the trims-on the sleeves, and cummerbund.

With bows on the skirt. :)

She looks very ladylike in this shot, lol!

...and here's the hat we waited for. Not entirely the look I was going for, but oh well. Sadie was insistent on a hat, so I got her a hat! It's her birthday, so how could I say no? 

So, I used this tutorial for the basic dress construction. 

Exchanged the sheer fabric for the sleeves and lengthened them. (and added trim) 

Left off the waistband, but made a cummerbund. (instructions below)

I made a simple "bib" by sewing two rectangular pieces of my sheer material right sides together, on 3 sides. Turned right side out, and sewed closed the bottom, turning raw edges in. Then I gathered it down the middle, sewed it to the dress, and then tacked it down at each corner with a few stitches, and added the ribbon bow.

Now for a few pics and notes about how I made the cummerbund.

First I cut out two pieces shaped like this, that came to a point in the middle, and were wide enough to fit around her waist. I ended up cutting some off in the end, but that's easy to do later.

On one piece, I laid out 5 pieces of ric rac like so, and then sewed them down, sewing straight down the middle.

Then I took some pre-made piping, and pinned it along each edge, with the piping towards the middle.

I clipped the piping at the bottom there a little bit, to fit better around the little point.

Then, using a zipper foot, I sewed AS CLOSE as I could to the piping. Like, really close.

Then I pinned the other red piece right sides together, and sewed (with my zipper foot still) close to the piping again. It wasn't hard to tell where it was, I just manipulated the fabric a bit so it would stand out better. Leave the ends open.

No pics of the rest, but I turned it right side out, checked my piping to see if I needed to restitch anything, and then pressed it. Then I figured out where I needed to place my velcro to fit the Sadester. I cut it where I needed, serged the ends, turned them under and stitched over the ends, then sewed on my velcro. All done!