Beautiful work! I understand why you chose to smooth out the colours, but consider the effect for another project - I think the dots added a very interesting texture.
As always, your work is exceptional. Could you share how many hours were involved in the piece that you stitched? We see an 11-minute video, but I know that a lot of time went into this flower.
Wow, that is so pretty! Good job! How would you use this? Would you it out of the practice fabric and use it as an applique? Or would you make it again on the final fabric, like a linen shirt? Very curious as to how to use embroidery as I only ever done cross-stitching :)