Peacock and Pattern

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

Peacock and Pattern by Jane Tattersfield – Liberty Puzzles – 508 pieces

Man did I have a good time with this one, but it went together exactly the opposite of what I’d planned. When I looked at the image on the box I thought to myself that the easiest way to assemble this would be to start with the peacock in the center and work my way outwards. But when I was laying out all the pieces the puzzle told me that my initial plan was NOT the way to go.

Most wooden puzzles aren’t ones that you can start with the edges, especially if they are Victorian cut or have crazily shaped pieces. This image has a small border on it though, and that made it the most logical place for me to begin. Instead of rigidly sticking to my mental plan of how things were going to go together I decided to shift and let the puzzle lead where it wanted to go. After assembling the border, it flowed quite naturally into the yellow patterns, and so on. I did put together the peacock’s body and head earlier on, but the rest of him wasn’t finished until the very end.

This puzzle was more difficult than I’d bargained for, they’ve upped the difficulty level of their piece cuts at Liberty if you ask me. There were many times that I thought I knew exactly why I was looking for, but I most certainly did not. There were tabs where you thought you just needed to find that correct shape, but actually you would end up with two different pieces whose ends joined together to make the shape you needed. It’s hard to describe with words, but it was a tricky cut that required a little extra brain power, and it reminded me a bit of the 100+ year-old Parker Bros. Pasttime puzzle that mom and I assembled together.

Forgive the cockeyed picture, my apologies. Sometimes you can’t really tell on your phone whether you’ve got it right – or maybe that’s just me. I should blame my age, but I’m extremely tired today so please insert your own joke about old ladies and failing eyesight here…

Now that the jokes are out of the way, don’t you just love to see the back of such a well designed puzzle? I know I do!

They had this sort of picture setup on the Liberty website, and I loved it so much I wanted to recreate it here. It was fiddly work getting certain pieces out of the way without disturbing others, but I think it ended up making for an excellent picture, don’t you?

So many absolutely beautiful whimsy pieces in this puzzle, and so many multipiece whimsies as well. Aren’t they gorgeous? I need to get my thesaurus out and find some new adjectives to tell you how amazing these puzzles are. Fabulous!

Dog Lovers

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

Dog Lovers by Anderson Design Group – MasterPieces – 1000 pieces

As a verified dog person, of course I loved this puzzle. One of the better quality MasterPieces puzzle I’ve done in quite a while. The fit was excellent, the image reproduction was very good, and the very random piece shape kept things interesting. Great puzzle!

I started with all the wording, even though that’s not where I normally begin with a collage puzzle. But in this image there were way more pieces with no words so it seemed the best place to start.

Once these words were put together a song kept running around and around my head. “Kanine Krunchies can’t be beat, they make each meal a special treat. Happy dogs are those who eat nutritious Kanine Krunchies.” I knew of course that it must have been a Disney or Pixar movie, but just couldn’t place the song and the movie together in my brain. Luckily we’re living in the age of google, so putting the first bit of the song into a search engine brought me to a small clip of the movie where that song is sung. 101 Dalmations! I knew I recognized it, and once I found out where it came from it stopped playing in my head. Thank goodness!

Look at that gorgeous little lady! If you’ve been here for a while you know that I used to have a Boston Terrier named Buddy, and he was definitely my sunshine. I miss him terribly, but still think all Boston’s are gorgeous dogs and always love to see them in a puzzle. 🐾🧡

The fit was so good on this puzzle that I knew when I was at the beginning putting the border together that I’d be able to do this at the end. Not a fit that’s so tight you have to cram the pieces together, just snug enough. Love that kind of fit! It’s not often I can do this with a 1000 piece puzzle, so this picture here made me very happy indeed. In fact, I took this before I took any other pictures, that’s how confident I was in being able to stand it up.

If this looks like a puzzle you’d enjoy, it has a very good recommendation from me – if anyone gives a crap what I recommend. 😂

Donuts Almost In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling2 Comments

Rainbow Donuts by Julie Seabrook – good puzzle co. – 500 pieces

On Friday I completely overdid it, and now I’m spending this weekend trying to recover. Luckily I finished the previous puzzle before I left on Thursday and in my own way sorted the next one, see above. The border pieces are in a container, and the rest of them are just generally sorted by color. It isn’t the way I normally do things, but some puzzle images call for this kind of sorting from me.

I don’t have any info for you on the quality of this new-to-me brand, other than to tell you that I’m a little underwhelmed. All the pieces are ballerinas, and the chipboard is on the thin side. We’ll see once I get in to the actually assembly if things get better, worse, or stay the same. Stay tuned. 📺

Hopefully you’re puzzling something great this weekend; and for those of you in the US, enjoy the holiday tomorrow!

Embroidery Table

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

Embroidery Table by Andrew Farley – Milton Bradley (Big Ben) – 1000 pieces

This gorgeous image made for a great time puzzling, and had me thinking of my momma whenever I worked on it. Is this not just a beautiful all-around puzzle? Stunning!

This section was one of the last to be completed, but one of the parts of the image that means the most to me. Mom taught me to cross-stitch at a young age, and I continued on doing that particular kind of embroidery until well into my marriage. The small skeins of floss (yes, that’s what they’re called) really brought back memories for me. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve done any cross-stich at all, but I remember vividly going to the craft store with my list of the numbers of each color that the pattern called for and picking them all out. My old eyes are failing me, but even though this particular hobby is no longer available to me, there are always puzzles with embroidery and cross-stitch to bring back memories. 💖🧵

Buttons, buttons, who’s got the buttons? The short answer is, my mom had the buttons! In tins, in jars, in whatever container she could find, she had SOOOOO many buttons. Any time I see a collection of buttons in an image the first thought that pops into my head is mom. Always.

And lastly, scissors. They were always a point of contention when I was growing up, for some reason mom could never find her “good scissors”. One of us girls had taken them to make something, or destroy something, or whatever reason we came up with – and the poor woman could never find a good pair of scissors in the house! I know how she feels now, I have my own “good scissors” and misery, woe, and pestilence to anyone who uses them or takes them without permission!

I adored this puzzle, and all the memories it brought back. And I also loved how much it made me think of her. I honestly didn’t plan it, but for me to be working on this puzzle on the anniversary of her passing – she was just letting me know she’s always with me. 💙

Mysterious Owl

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles6 Comments

Mysterious Owl by Pixie Cold – Ravensburger – 150 pieces

So I finally decided to try out one of Ravensburger’s wooden puzzles, and I was very happily surprised by how good the quality is! Perhaps because they’re my favorite brand I didn’t want to tarnish my perception of them so I stayed away purposely; whatever the reason, it makes no difference as I thought the quality was excellent!

Many puzzle brands that go from cardboard to wooden don’t seem to understand that the way you design the pieces of a wooden puzzle is very different; Ravensburger doesn’t seem to have stumbled over that problem. The thickness of the wood, the image adherence to the wood, the image chosen, the design of the pieces, how they fit together and most especially how they fit around the whimsies – all of these things are fantastic!

Beautiful whimsy pieces that match with the image perfectly, although to me that owl in the lower right corner looks somewhat like a cat.

Yes, this is the back of the puzzle. You can barely see the lines of cutting, which to me tells me they wanted to be sure that the fit of the puzzle wasn’t too loose – and it wasn’t. It’s a little sad that you can’t see all the piece shapes and whimsies on the back, but it also shows that it’s a well made puzzle.

This puzzle was excellent, and much better quality than I gave it credit for. Shame on me for waiting so long. This puzzle was stunning and fabulous all around!