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The dress
Me again. I have been thinking about that black dress she is wearing and it might be too busy. Some might say you could make it solid but then you would have a large black mass in the middle of your painting. I would suggest you play down the print so it's hardly noticable. You could enlarge the print so it's not such a tiny detailed print.
I was recently in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts thanks to a suggestion by Sharon Knettell (thank you Sharon) and on display was John Singer Sargent's painting of the four sisters with those huge blue and white vases. Well, next to the painting were the ACTUAL vases. They're about 6 feet tall. When I first saw the vases I thought, oh, those look similar, same shape, but different pattern. The actual vases have lots and lots of pattern on them, but JSS simplified this pattern (to almost half, I would say) in the painting. This is what I'm suggesting you do with your mother-in-laws dress, to simplify that pattern. And play down the contrast between the black and white of the print. Flowers could be off-white, not stark white, and blurred.
Hope this helps!
Joan
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