Made my final adjustments to the pansy. I expanded my notes, below. The 1st and 3rd photos are the closest to the real colors of the thread I used.

Size 7 crochet hook.
Size 10 thread, with the exception of size 5 Perle cotton for the edging.

This is a modified version of the pansy found here:
Pansy Hot Dish Mat (Note: asbestos mats are a no-no ~ they are dangerous to the health)

I didn’t do the starting chain of: ch 7, join.

Instead I did this:
Chain 4, slst in fourth chain from hook.
(Chain 3, slst in same chain as last slst) 4 times.

The yellow ends are hidden/tucked under the slst bars which makes the center look more like sc, and fuller than just slst.

Round 1 is then crocheted into the 5 chain three loops (instead of into the recommended chain 7 ring).

On Round 2: I went right into making the two large pansy petals since I was crocheting with the correct color that I’d decided upon. And I slip stitched over to the third dc, before starting the chain 4. (I also ended this color with a slst in the very first dc of the set of three dcs which is located right after the second large petal.) Plus, I changed the instructions which say, “sc in center dc of 3 dc group”, to “BPSC in center dc of 3 DC group”. I did the BPSC between all five of the the petals. Four of the BPSC were done in the color of the smaller petals. Only the BPSC between the larger petals was done in the color of the larger petals. In doing it this way, it brought the smaller petals sightly in front of the larger petals, like a real pansy is. The BPSCs also helped the colors to look more blended instead of just an abrupt color change at the tops of those 3 dc from round 1.