Two Done!

Dress #1 and #2 complete, and hopefully, soon to be joined by dress #3.  Though it remains to be seen whether I'll successfully complete another dress prior to Wednesday's deadline.

Anyway, dress #1 --- the red dotted rayon faille sundress made with Simplicity 2638 turned out pretty well.  However, since I'm not totally comfortable baring my arms in public, it's a good thing that it goes nicely with my lightweight tencel denim jacket. 

Here's the dress sans jacket, albeit a bit creased (I confess that I plucked it out of the laundry basket for this photo op without giving it a touch up with the iron):

 

Not too crazy about this zipper plus keyhole opening with button closure.  It seems unnecessarily fussy to me and I'd opt for a zipper alone next time I use this pattern.   This dress turned out a bit large, in spite of a well-fitting muslin, so I ended up doing some post-construction alteration to improve the fit.

Dress #2 was a complete success and is super-duper comfy too.  I used a cheery green and ivory ITY knit from fabric.com in combination with McCall's 9574.  Per the instructions, I basted the back seam and tried it on to see if I could skip the zipper.  Since the knit was nice and elastic, I was able to easily slip it on and off without adding the zip (yay!).  This dress fits me really really well and the hubs is quite taken with it :D.  My only dissatisfaction with this pattern is how the waistband insert is only on the front of the dress, the back is plain and seems a smidgen unfinished/unstructured as a result.  When I make this pattern again, I may try continuing the waist inset completely around the dress --- seems as if that would be an easy tweak.

Onward to dress #3!