Sewing a Ballet Folklorico Dress for our American Girl Doll

When we got to know American Girl of the Year Marisol’s story, we knew something was missing from her collection. She has lovely dance outfits, her Spotlight Ballet Outfit is a stunner. But a central part of Marisol’s story is that she dances ballet folklorico. In her story she says that her ballet folklorico skirts are her prized possession. Marisol’s collection has ballet outfits, tap, and jazz outfits, but no folklorico dress. It’s something that has always baffled me.

Making Marisol the ballet folklorico dress that she deserves has been a project on my mind for awhile now, but seemed very daunting. I spent a couple of months with my mom researching how to make a folklorico dress and sourcing just the right materials for the look I was hoping for. So here we have it, Marisol’s True Spotlight Outfit.

In her story, Marisol mentioned that she loves her lacey white Veracruz dress, so our dress is modeled off of that style, but the colors were inspired by her Spotlight Outfit.

I’m so pleased with how it turned out and grateful I had my mom by my side to help out with this project. The dress itself wasn’t too terribly hard to put together, although the silky mesh was a bit of a challenge. The hardest part was that we were making this trial and error style, with no real pattern to go off of. The folklorico type dress patterns that I have found for American Girl dolls do not have a full enough skirt for what I was looking for.

We ended up using a basic doll top pattern as a base for the top, then added the lace sleeves and modified the neckline to fit the lace. After watching a few tutorials on YouTube, my mom figured out a basic pattern for a circle skirt. We found this one the most helpful, although it is in Spanish, you can still get an idea of how to make the pattern and measurements. For the skirt, we did two layers, both of which are double circle skirts with lace trim. The layers are sewed together with a band that ties in the back. We used over 3 yards of lace on each layer. After this project all I have to say is bless those seamstresses that make human size folklorico dresses.

Marisol’s Spotlight Outfit has navy mesh layered over purple fabric, so I wanted our folklorico dress to have the same effect. I sourced a lace for the top layer that looks similar to the lace on the tutu in the Spotlight Outfit.

Here’s the materials we used to put this dress together:

• Top Layer-Power Stretch Mesh in Navy Blue from Fabric.com
  • Note: I bought ours from fabric.com where it was cheaper, but it’s currently not available, so I’ve provided a link to Amazon.
• Bottom Layer-Michael Miller Cotton Couture Broadcloth in Lavender
• Lace in Bottom Layer-1/2 inch Navy Lace
• Lace on Top Layer-2 3/4 inch Navy Embroidered Lace