white summer dresses + a Josefina skirt

The Liberty Girls Retreat was quickly approaching, and to keep with tradition, the girls needed Josefina dresses!

 (Remember these Kit dresses?  And these Felicity dresses?

Makes me want to be young again and dress up like my heroes!)

I decided to sew up some cute white summer dresses,

and put an elastic-waist Mexican-style skirt over them for the retreat.

Now my girls have new white dresses for Sundays this summer!

 

I based the pattern off of Simplicity 2377, with some variations.

I didn't have any thin elastic in my stash, so I used the shirring method.  I hand-wound elastic thread onto the bobbin, and then I began sewing on the largest stitch setting, at the shoulder, and spiraled my way down until I had sewn several rows.  Then, I steam-ironed it to shrink it all up pretty!  I did the same on the sleeves.  I love, love, love how it turned out!  We want to make some summer blouses now too!

While we're on the subject of shirring, some of you asked for the pattern I used in these summer dresses.  I made them the same way.  I made a tube with the dress fabric, using the width of the fabric with a seam down the back, and then hemmed the top and bottom.  Then I started at the back center, and spiraled my way down until it was the length I wanted.  We prefer sleeves to sleeveless (for modesty's sake), even in summer, so I added sleeves via Dana's shirt dress tutorial.  I simply cut (gasp!)...yes, cut right through the shirring, and sewed sleeves on!  I held my breath the first time I did this, but it worked out fine!  I made up the sleeves using Dana's tutorial, and then sinched them at the shoulder and arm with more shirring.

 Look at these precious Josefina girls...

It's so fun to study an American Girl all sememster, and then spend a day "living in" her world!

The retreat was super fun.  We played games, made homemade corn tortillas and salsa, learned latin dancing, weaved on a mini-loom, and carded and spun wool...just like Josefina did!  

Now, if I can only find a minute to make one more white dress...

for me!