Girl's Dresses from the 1930's and 40's

These first few patterns are ones my grandmother used to make clothes for my mother and aunts.  My mother told me her favorite was one that was made of brown gingham and white, but she hated the brown shoes she wore with them all.

The next ones are smocked dress patterns -- the kind that had a transfer of dots to iron onto the fabric then sew through the dots to pleat the fabric (these days, get a pleater!).  I don't think my grandmother did smocking but my mother did lots of it, so these may have been in her patterns.  I had many smocked dresses by her when I was little.

These next ones show, in my opinion, the best summer dress for little girls:  the apron dress.  Comfortable and cool. 

McCall must have liked that donkey cart transfer quite a bit; I saw it on another of their patterns from this time period.

The next three are pages from a McCall Needlwork catalog from 1938.

Timeless styles.