Commercial Pattern: Simplicity 1137 (with alterations)
Working Time: 11 Hours
Materials:
Jacquard Fabric, White, 6m
Faux Fur, 0.5m
Pearl String
Zip
Total Cost: 107,13 Euros
Finally, I can write about a very simple and straightforward dress that I was able to finish in 2 days without any major incidents. It’s refreshing, honestly. But how did it happen in the first place?
Gathering The Materials For Ciri
Well, as you might have guessed from my Yennefer cosplay, I’m a huge fan of The Witcher and I was incredibly impatient for S2 (still am!). When the trailer for the second season finally dropped, I watched it over and over and over again to finally enjoy some new Witcher content and my eyes fell on Ciri’s white dress which she is seen wearing in the trailer as they arrive at Kaer Morhen. I loved it from the moment I saw it. It’s simple, it’s elegant and there’s still something absolutely special about it, so I decided to make it. I found the perfect fabric at my favourite fabric place, after a few hours of searching I also found gorgeous faux fur and I found some pearl strings to get around attaching all those beads by hand. I was ready to get started.
Making Ciri’s S2 White Dress
I low-key wanted to do a Ciri cosplay during the first season already, but with the white dress visible in the trailer, I could no longer resist. When I started to think about how I was going to do it, I went through all the sewing patterns that I already owned and found a decent one in Simplicity 1137. It was originally meant for my Sansa dress (oh look, another project) and it seemed very suitable for my Ciri cosplay right from the beginning. I had to do only minor alterations on this, like having a seam at the front and the sleeves. Let’s just say the sewing pattern was 90% suitable.
When my fabric arrived, I was in the middle of a different cosplay, but since I already had white yarn in my overlock machine, I figured I’d just quickly use it on Ciri before getting back to the other cosplay. Well, my hand slipped and I finished Ciri within 2 days. Whoops. I cut out all the pieces from the sewing pattern and realised already how much I really loved the fabric. Oftentimes, I chose a fabric for the looks or the feel, but it’s rarely 100% perfect. Ciri was definitely an exception here because the fabric is absolutely gorgeous and perfect in every sense. It has the right weight and fall, it feels great and it’s marvellous to look at, so I was very, very happy with my choice in this case. I cut out all the pieces, ran them through the overlock machine and at that point, I was already halfway finished.
The only alteration I made to my Ciri cosplay (apart from splitting the dress at the front) was the sleeves. The original sewing pattern has no sleeves on the dress because it comes with a jacket, so I used the jacket sleeves for the actual dress instead. However, Ciri’s white S2 dress seems to have double sleeves. It’s hard to tell from just the trailer and I haven’t seen any HQ stills with this dress yet, so I can only guess. Either the dress has regular sleeves and more flowing, triangular-shaped ones on top or Ciri is wearing a dress and a coat on top. To keep things simple, I opted for double sleeves. I used the same pattern, made them a little bit wider and cut them into the shape that I needed. They close at the elbow and then point towards the back of the hand in a sort of triangle shape.
Putting the dress together and attaching the sleeves was very easy and I have to admit that this is quite a decent sewing pattern to work with. As always with Simplicity, it was too big at first, but by now I’m aware of the fact and immediately cut out two sizes smaller than the pattern said I needed, so it turned out to be a very good fit almost right from the start. I started with the base of the dress, attached the pearl string, finished the sleeves and then attached them.
It’s hard to see from the trailer exactly what the beads look like on Ciri’s dress, so I used two rows of plain and simple pearl strings which I attached by hand. If you have a beading foot for your sewing machine, the process is probably going to be a lot quicker, but I did it by hand. Maybe, once we get a better look at Ciri’s costume, I’ll remove the beads and exchange them for something more fitting, but for now, I’m quite happy with what it looks like.
Adding Fur To Ciri’s Costume
In the trailer, you can see that Ciri is wearing the fur of a wolf over her shoulders to keep her warm. I think it goes without saying that I didn’t go out to shoot a wolf, so I went on Amazon instead to find something that looks similar. That was probably the hardest task I had to do for this Ciri cosplay because you can find faux fur in all possible colours and shades except for the one that you actually need. It took me hours to find the fur I ended up using, but I’m very happy with it. It has some very realistic brown and grey shades and it’s incredibly soft, so it does the job very well. It had a good width, so I just needed to order 0.5m and I could even cut that in half because it was enough to drape over my shoulders. I could have used a needle and thread to get in into the shape that I wanted, but if you want the truth – it is bunched up and held together by large safety pins. After draping it over the dress, my Ciri cosplay was officially finished.
Wearing My Ciri Cosplay
Even though I finished this in July and it was technically too hot to wear it, I immediately put on my Ciri cosplay to take some photos and reels and I am still ecstatic about the results. The dress has a great weight and looks absolutely gorgeous on, so I’ll be very happy to wear it again in winter when it is a little cooler. From start to finish, Ciri was an easy project that didn’t involve any major problems and it was finished over the course of two days in just 11 hours. I am absolutely happy with the result and I can recommend this to any beginner. It would make a great first project!
I also made Ciri’s training outfit.
