I took a course with Maureen Goldsmith and she had us use batiste as the base. We made bougainvillea flowers (mine is still in progress (6 years later) I'll see if I can find a link that might have her technique in it. We used silk thread so that the fine thread wouldn't show. Everything is done by hand, embroidery on the actual leaf & beading.
Here's a link to her site with pictures of some of her pansies taught with that method. Looks like she calls the technique slip/off block appliqué.
http://www.pastelpixels.com/mcq/index.html