I really wanted to sew this afternoon, but forgot to throw my fabric into the wash. My friend and sewing teacher, Megan, taught me to wash my fabrics before sewing and I have faithfully followed her advice. So while I was waiting for the dry cycle to finish, I scrounged around in my closet to find a shirt that I'd been saving to try my first refashion on. What do I mean by refashion? Reuse, re-purpose, sew green, recycle... RE-FASHION.
Last week I happened to find Wardrobe Refashion, and while I'm not ready to take the pledge (because I really don't know what I'm doing well enough yet) the idea sparked my interest. What about that red shirt that I no longer wear? I bet I could turn that into a skirt for Magdalena.
Dug out said red shirt, cut it one inch above the gathered empire waist, replaced the old worn out elastic with new, sewed about three inches where the stitches had broken, and ta da!

It worked. My first refashion! Took all of five minutes.
***UPDATED 10/26: I just did what I wished others would not do on wardrobe refashion, and that is just generalize the directions. So many times I see a refashion that I really would like to copy, but don't have enough information to do it successfully. To rectify this, I'm adding detailed instructions.
1. The shirt already had an elastic empire waist. I lined up the waist and used a ruler and rotary cutter to cut one inch above the gathered waist. This kind of gives the waist a ruffle of it's own.
2. Since t-shirt material does not fray, I left the edge raw.
3. The existing elastic was worn out. I opened up the casing and removed the existing elastic.
4. With new elastic cut to my niece's waist measurement, I threaded it through the casing, sewed the elastic together, and closed up the casing.
5. I fixed a few seams where the original stitching had come undone.
I'd really like to learn to sew with knits. Anyone have any books/sites you could suggest?