I love Aline’s By the Seashore  ensemble, but I’ve never been 100% happy with the skirt, especially not on me (it’s too short).  And the bustle has serious issues. When I inherited Nana’s fabric stash it included a 5.4 metre length of blue and white tartan.  It wasn’t quite as ideal a match for Renoir’s painting as the tan and blue tartan I found for my first skirt, but it was free, so that’s a massive benefit! I set the fabric aside for an Aline re-do, and in April 2011 I decided it was time to tackle the project.  First I made a basic skirt foundation out of heavy cotton calico (muslin), using the 1880s patterns reproduced at the front of Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 1860-1940.  They are all basically the same: a series of gored panels with angled edges heading towards the back, and a rectangular back panel which goes over the bustle. In addition to the original Renoir painting, I was using two other pieces of inspiration.  First, a mid 1880s outdoors ensemble …