Hi Kate, welcome to 2015 52s. You've made a good start with 2 powerful images. For Bliss, I definitely think the crop improves it and would personally have done something similar with your Patterns shot I think that cropping some of the sky and getting rid of the big wonky tree trunk from the left would give more emphasis to the fabulous colours and diagonal patterns made by the shadows.
With well over 100 starters for the year, I don’t think any of us have a chance of commenting on every entry every week, but I hope to keep popping in to each thread at least once in a while. Good luck for the rest of the year.