Applique & more gathering...

I love the look of applique; it reminds me of a child's fabric book, fuzzyfelt and cute motifs on t-shirts. In fact my favourite skirt is covered in applique (courtesy of Monsoon not me!). I tried to do some applique that wasn't typical of this and came up with...
Reverse or Sans Blas applique using brightly coloured felts (no fraying - yeah!).
Using sheer fabrics and 'hiding' secrets inside - well when I say secrets I mean silk strands and gold stars. I've also being doing some more gathering samples, firstly using bright stripy fabric:
I like the way the stripes distort, bending and flowing into new shapes. I also used some blue hessian, using the strands themselves to gather the fabric rather than sewing thread in. I think this creates a strange rigid shape which reminds me of insects!