And More Leaves....

Just How Many Did You Say....?

As I was completing the Weekly Blossom, Dear Readers, I was also pondering the process for the leaves of the Summer Lilac shrub.... especially the complicated ones being added to stems already on the bush... and was trying to determine just how much of my Summer was to be consumed by these leaves. And I have to confess that the figures are a bit daunting, and really maybe I just don't want to know how long it will be! But because it is Summer now and the evenings are light so late, I was also working on the Next weekly blossom.... whichever one that may be, and you can see its beginnings below in the box along with a bunch of the little leaflets for the Summer shrub...

Those pairs of leaves glued to little stems, 

all painted and ready to be added to the stems 

that are already attached to the shrub.

And another batch of those Leaflets under way...

Here are thirty, the first batch was around twenty...

And that equals about a quarter of the leaflets 

that need to be made and attached to the stems already on the shrub.

And when All those are done,

 that will equal about one quarter to one third

 of the total leafy stems I need to make. 

 

But meanwhile I needed to finish painting the leaves I had added already...

 they needed the darker green added to the top sides.

Again, this is harder to do than it looks... 

painting onto leaves that wiggle as you paint...

 and trying to avoid getting paint where it didn't belong.

Eventually the top sides were all painted.

And you can get an idea of just how sparse the leaves are!

And painting the little leaf pairs... 

first the strip on tip of the paler green...

Painting the undersides the paler green.....

Then painting the top sides with the darker green, 

leaving the pale stripe in the middle.

And then, Dear Readers, it was time to begin to attach

 all these little leaf pairs to the stems on the shrub.....

This is an example of the stems I finished for my test run.... 

each stem has three leaf pairs added.

The difficulty is that each stem already has one pair

 attached right in the middle of the stem... 

so I need to add these pairs above and below it on the stem..... 

to get the spacing correct in the end.

I am starting with the ones below (closer to the base of the stem)

 which is harder to reach, but will be easier done first

 rather than second, if you see what I mean.

Here, if you look closely, you might see

 that there are now two leaf pairs on the stems

 for about a half of the branches.....

(Yes, I am counting!)

When I have made about Fifty more leaf pairs

 I will attach them to the other half of the stems...

 (Are you confused yet?)

And then I will make another hundred or so of the leaf pairs

 and attach them on the top ends of all the stems...

And then I can resume my "Ten Leafy Branches"

 routine for another eight or ten weeks....

At which point I might be getting near the end of this shrub!

(Did I mention it was daunting...?)

But meanwhile, I have completed the Second weekly blossom

 for the third consecutive week....

(Is it number Sixty-four or number Sixty-five...?)

And of course you want to see them in The Folly Parlor...

The fifth one in the vase on the left....

(which kept tipping over and spilling them all out...!)

And the first one in the milk jug 

which will go home to The Lovely Old Dollhouse.

So am I done yet?

Noooo..... not by a Long shot!

 

But Never fear, Dear Readers,

I am not giving up! 

I am concocting a plan....

It doesn't matter how many Leaves there are still to make...

I will be adding a Weekly Leaf Tally to the Plan...

'Cause I'm Really just getting started!

(And Who's counting anyway?)