Prom season is upon us. and who doesn’t want to feel like a queen twirling the night away? With the help of Mood’s newest pattern The Cicely Dress and our newest tulles and plisses, you can make your frothy dress fantasies a reality. Not only can you wear this dress to prom, it’s also great for cocktail parties or even weddings. Who’s ready to conquer this new pattern and create an amazing look?!
Purchase Materials Used Below:
- 6-8 yards Canal Blue Stretch Satin
- 7-9 yards Ivory Starry Glitter Tulle
- 3-5 yards Granada White Twill Acetate Lining
- 8 yards Clear Rigilene – 8mm/0.375″
- 1 Gold Metal Ring – 1.75″
- 1 904 Pale Seafoam 24″ Invisible Zipper
- MDF302 – The Cicely Dress Sewing Pattern (free download below!)
Step 1
Print, tape, and cut out your pattern pieces out of your base and overlay fabric..
Step 2
Cut or mark notches, trace darts and sew darts.
Step 3
Start pinning your overlay pieces over your lower bodice. Stay stitch around the pieces for stability.
Step 4
Pin and sew your lower bodice together. We suggest sewing the lining first and do a pre-fitting to make sure it fits perfectly.
Step 5
Once the lower bodice is sewn, press your seams away from the center front of the bodice. Once pressed, stitch the seam allowance down about ¼’’ away from the seam. By doing this, you will be making a channel for the boning to go through.
Step 6
Pin the overlay to the upper bodice pieces, and stay stitch like you did for the lower bodice.
Step 7
Pin and stitch the upper bodice side seam and shoulder seams. Do the same with the lining pieces.
Step 8
Using a French seam, fold the sleeve with wrong sides together and stitch. Once sewn, baste at the top edge between the notches.
Step 9
Fold the raw edge of the sleeve up at ½’’ and stitch, leaving an opening for the elastic.
Step 10
Pin sleeves to the upper bodice at the side seam, then gather them into the armscye.
Step 11
Pin your lining to your upper bodice, matching shoulder seam and notches. Sew down the front, leaving an opening between the dots on the front bodice. Note: The bodice isn’t connected yet.
Step 12
For the armscye, pin right sides together and stitch. Note: this is a tricky way to do the lining. The fastest way would be to fold under the lining and slip stitch shut.
Step 13
Clip around the armscye and press.
Step 14
Gather the upper bodice (piece A) and fold it over the medal ring and pin. Distribute the gathers to your liking and hand sew down keeping the lining free. Once you are finished with one side, repeat on the other side.
Step 15
Fold the lining over the raw edge and slip stitch shut.
Step 16
Trim boning to the right size per channel, leaving ½’’ seam allowance on the top and the bottom. Once all the boning is in each channel, using a pressing cloth, press boning down flat.
Note: Make sure the ends of your boning are curved and not square, otherwise it will poke through the fabric.
Step 17
Pin the upper bodice to the lower bodice starting at the seams of piece D, leaving the center front open. Work your way outward matching side seams. Once pinned, stitch slowly just in case you didn’t push the boning all the way down. Tip: Push the boning down a little extra for easy sewing.
Step 18
Press the bodice seam and understitch. Before you understitch, make sure you caught the overlay in the seam.
Step 19
Set your bodice aside and prepare for the skirt.
Step 20
Using a French seam, pin three of the half skirts together at side seams. Tip: to make sure you know what side is the actual side, place a pin or two along the seam.
Step 21
Pin the back skirt together the same way as you did the front. This time, each side will get one half circle, then the center back pieces. So I wouldn’t confuse which back pieces are what, I added pins on where the side seam is and where the pockets will go.
Step 22
Pin your overlay skirt along the side seam, then pin your pocket to the front skirt and stitch. Do the same on the other side of your front skirt.
Step 23
Do the exact same process for the back as you did the front.
Step 24
Pin the side seam and pocket, and stitch closed. When sewing, make sure you get all of the layers.
Step 25
Once the side seams are sewn, stitch the center back skirt to the point where the zipper will end. Do the same for the lining.
Step 26
Sew the skirt lining, the same way as you did your base/overlay skirt, minus the pocket. Once sewn, do a single basting stitch at the top, as you might need to gather it later. For the lining, you can eliminate three skirts on the fold and just use two plus your back pieces, in order to cut down on bulk.
Step 27
Now that the skirt is sewn, pin pockets going towards the front of the skirt, then sew two rows of basting stitches. Once based and gathered, pin lower bodice to the skirt, matching side seams and leaving the lining free. Adjust gathers where needed and stitch.
Step 28
With wrong sides together, pin skirt lining to the main skirt. If needed, gather the lining to fit the skirt. Stitch along the previous stitch line.
Step 29
Pin upper lining to waistline, folding raw edge under ½’’. Slip stitch shut.
Step 30
Sew in your zipper.
Step 31
Do a rolled hem for the base fabric and lining.
Step 32
You’re all done! It’s now time to strut your stuff on the dance floor.
Hi Greg, this pattern is absolutely beautiful! Really looking forward to having a go at creating my own Cicely dress. I’ve just tried to download the pattern, but the download link I am receiving is a sizing chart only, not the full pattern! Thanks! Sam 🙂
Hi, Sam! Just fixed the file, so you should be able to re-enter your email and get the correct one. Thanks for letting us know! 🙂
Excellent, worked perfectly, thanks so much!! 🙂
The dress came together beautifully! Only thing I would say is, it would be super helpful to know the seam allowance on the corset. My tester came to be way too big so I had to keep increasing my seam allowance until it for right.
Hi Alicia, I’m having that trouble too. It doesn’t say. What did you use??
Hi, how much fabric did you use to make the dress?
Hi, Ella! You can find yardage recommendations in the materials list and the Shop this Look widget above. 🙂
Do you think an intermediate-level sewist could sew this?
Hi Ashley! Yes, I consider this pattern to be intermediate to advanced. Some techniques that may be helpful to know beforehand are how to sew boning channels, as well as experience with special occasion fabrics like tulle and satin. 😀
could this be done with a plain tulle over a stretch satin of the same color? This is a wonderful pattern. Thank you for making it free.
Hi Lucy! Yes, that sounds lovely. 😀
Hi! Love this dress! I’m a bit confused by the skirt panels and I know that I can just attached whatever skit I want to it, but I like how full the skirt looks, so I’m trying to wrap my mind around it. So the panel pattern for the skirt it a quarter circle. The instructions in the pdf says skirt front and sides cut 5 but at the bottom says on the fold. Is on the fold just for the lining or for all layers?
For the skirt center back it says cut 2 mirrored pairs. I understand that. No issues there lol.
So in total is the skirt made up of:
A: 7 of the quarter circle panels? Meaning the skirt is 1 3/4 of a circle in total?
B: 12 of the quarter circle panels? (5 panels cut on fold to make 10 quarter circle panels, plus the center back 2 mirrored pairs) Meaning that the skirt is 3 circles in total?
C: I’m really not understanding this pattern and there is a third option lol. This can totally be the case, bc I’m most definitely over thinking this lol.
Thank you so much for putting this beautiful pattern out here!
Hi Taylor! We’re sorry for the delay in responding to your question! We get dozens of comments and questions each day, and so many questions get buried and, unfortunately, unanswered. We are now focusing user support on patterns 2 years and newer. We hope this will prevent questions on our more current patterns from going unanswered, such as yours. Although this is late, we wanted to respond in case anyone else has the same question:
Although the skirt appears to be a quarter circle panel, keep in mind that O needs to be cut on the fold, which will make it a half circle. P, which is not cut on the fold, needs to be cut mirrored. So, for EACH layer, there are 5 half circle skirts (O) and 2 quarter circle skirts (P).
Hi, I’m interested in trying to sew this dress, however I’m trying to figure out where the zipper goes as its not extremely evident from the instructions or pictures. Is the zipper meant to be down the back bodice, through the back corset, and finish halfway down the back skirt?
Hi Avery, yes you are correct!
Hi! I’m thinking about making the dress, I’m just a bit confused. Does the pattern have seam allowance on it already? Or do we have to add upon cutting?
Hello! A half inch seam allowance is included!
roughly how much fabric would you need for just the skirt ?
Hi Lily, this is a gathered circle skirt. So you can either use our Circle Skirt Calculator, measure the skirt pattern pieces once they’ve been printed out, or you can look at the 1st page in the pattern download to calculate the yardage (by using the page size – 8.5×11 to calculate the area needed for each piece). 🙂
hi! beautiful dress, but i was wandering if it’s possible to do waist with stripe w/ elastics in it instead of a full on corset? i have a very thin and see through fabric and i don’t think it’ll work 🙁
also, can this dress be maid with thin flowy viscose?
Hello, Amina! We are a little confused by your question. Are you asking if you can use boning instead of elastic? If so, we don’t recommend that. You don’t need to put boning in the dress, but it will lack structure. This pattern is 3 layers, so the see through fabric shouldn’t be a problem if you’re also sewing a main fabric and/or lining!
can you make the bondice without boning?
also i have a tule with a pattern on the sides which i would like to use, if i alter the pattern to be a regular rectangle instead of a circle skirt, will that give too much volume at the hips?
what do you recomend?
Hi Sally, you could definitely make this without boning. It will lack some structure though, but you could make up for that by adding interfacing. I think the gathered tulle would look nice! Just be aware that it would add more volume at the hips, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! 😉
i meant to cut a long rectangle and then gather using a basting stich, will that add too much volume at the hips?
Do you think that it would work to do a lace-up back instead of a zipper?
Hi Elle, yes that would look great!