Author: Stacey at myjigsawjournal

Review: 9 PM

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

9 PM by Karla Gerard – Art Puzzle – 1000 pieces

This beauty was obtained in a swap with fellow puzzle blogger Nicola at Puzzler1909. I was keen to try puzzle brands that aren’t readily available here in the states, and so we did a little international puzzle trading. The artwork of Karla Gerard makes for such great puzzles – the colors and textures she uses make the assembly quite entertaining – so it was one of the ones I chose for the long trip to America. It’s been a few years since this puzzle made it’s way to little ol’ me, and thankfully I finally got myself around to working on it.

Art Puzzle is a Turkish brand, and according to my overseas puzzle dealer 😉 they are inexpensive as well. I found the quality to be pretty good – my one problem was the extremely shiny finish. There is only artificial light in my puzzle room, and with the dark sky and trees at the top of the image – the glare was too much for these aging eyes. With all the dark areas it was difficult to see slight variations in color, and it made the top portion of the puzzle a challenge for me.

There isn’t usually an in process picture, they’re not ones I normally stop to take. Most times my puzzle brain takes over and any thoughts of stopping to document my progress are lost in the ether. This time though, while texting with my puzzle pal, I sent a pic of how things were going. Please excuse the extra stuff on the board, this was originally meant for a text so I didn’t move everything out of the way.

The only help there was for the very dark top of the puzzle was these small streaks of color. The purple was easy enough to find, as were the lighter tan colors – otherwise, the top was a bit difficult for these old eyes. If only it had been about 3 PM in this image – that would have helped me out a LOT. Alas, it seems it was 9 PM. I really need to figure out a better system of lighting in my puzzle room.

This puzzle was truly enjoyable from start to…..almost finished. The shine on the pieces made the last third of the puzzle a bit tedious for me, but it all worked out in the end. And Karla Gerard’s artwork will always be special to me, as it was what I chose when I bought myself my very first wooden puzzle. Her images really do make for great puzzles!

Details:

  • Title:                  9 PM
  • Artist:                Karla Gerard
  • Brand:               Art Puzzle
  • Piece count:     1000 pieces
  • Size:                  Approx. 27 x 19 in. (68 x 48 cm)
  • Purchased:      Used, swapped

Quality:

  • Board:               Good
  • Cutting:             Very good
  • Image:               Excellent
  • Box:                   Average
  • Fit:                     Good, slightly loose
  • Puzzle Dust:     Very little
  • Piece cut:          Grid cut
  • Piece shapes:   Very good variety, on the smaller side
  • Finish:               Very shiny finish, lays flat

Overall Rating:      Very good, recommended

Reconciliation Quilt

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles2 Comments

Reconciliation Quilt by Lucinda Ward Honstain – Pomegranate – 300 pieces

Long time readers know I love a puzzle with quilts, and this is an image of just one very old quilt – and a busy one at that. It was pretty difficult for only 300 pieces, and for some reason I decided to make it harder on myself by putting the box away and working without an image. Wow.

Yep, that about covers it. Just…..wow.

The quality of Pomegranate puzzles is exceptional, and I found myself absentmindedly rubbing my thumb over the pieces as I contemplated where they should go. The hand feel is so nice that I couldn’t help myself! The fit was excellent, everything was as it should be – which is quite rare in a puzzle these days.

There’s a whole blurb on the back on the box about this quilt, it’s maker, and the museum where it now resides. “This forty block quilt depicts scenes of domestic life and public events in the 1860s. There are two blocks that celebrate what she (the quilter) viewed as significant reconciliatory events in postbellum America: the freeing of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis and the granting of suffrage to freed slaves.” The story behind the quilt is one of the reasons it is so valuable, and rare.

This quilt is considered one of the rarest in the world, and was the most expensive quilt ever sold at auction in America. It was purchased by private collectors for $264,000 in 1991; and the couple who purchased it eventually donated their collection of over 1000 quilts to the University of Nebraska. It’s an amazing piece of history, and a beautiful example of the form of art that many women used to express themselves.

Look at the different fabrics, the pattern – the amount of work that went into just a single quilt block is amazing to me. And this was done in the 1860’s! Imagine the time it took for just one section. On one hand there were no “electronic” distractions, after all the work was done for the day what else was there to do? On the other hand, I imagine it must have been difficult to work on things like quilting at the end of the day – by candlelight. One of the blocks has “Done Nov. the 18, 1867” embroidered into it; if that is when the entire quilt was finished, it was more than two and half years after the end of the civil war.

Check out the detail here, it’s amazing. What people can do with just imagination, a few simple tools and their hands sometimes astounds me. Truly.

This is a fantastic puzzle, with an interesting image that is challenging to assemble, but completely worth it. It would be a wonderfully entertaining 1000 piece puzzle!

Perry the Penguin

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Perry the Penguin by John Francis – Wentworth – 15 pieces

How adorable is this little guy? According to my father the Christmas season doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving. But I’ve got a ton of Christmas puzzles this year to share with everyone, so according to me the season is now. My Christmas tree has been up since 2019, so the season is always. All the time. ❄

This little guy wasn’t supposed to show up on the blog until early December, but I’ve decided he’s too awesome to wait. And I don’t want to bombard everyone with micro puzzles and mini puzzles for the whole month of December, so I’m starting now. Because I can.

To be completely honest I wasn’t paying close attention when I was ordering a bunch of micro puzzles from Wentworth; if they were cute or had images that weren’t the ordinary holiday themes they found themselves in my cart. If I had read everything completely I would have seen that I ordered three children’s puzzles – ones with EXTREMELY large pieces for little hands to assemble. It was pretty surprising to find them and their great big pieces in my delivery of mostly micro puzzles, but since I love puzzles of all shapes and sizes these little guys were adopted into the posse for the time being.

They’ll be going to their forever home soon. Where little hands can have fun and learn to love puzzles like Grandma Stacey does. Hopefully. Well, maybe not like Grandma Stacey – I can be a little bit obsessive about jigsaw puzzles. Maybe we’ll just hope they learn to love puzzles. 💜🧩

Such cute whimsies, and ones that children can easily identify. Each of these kid’s puzzles have a whimsy piece of the character, so sweet!

I wanted to show you how VERY large the pieces are. They are made for small hands to grasp easily, and made of wood so they’ll last for years if they’re taken care of.

Even though these puzzles only took me a minute or two to assemble, they are beautiful – and beautifully made. And I enjoyed putting them together. If I’m lucky, when I visit my honorary grandkids I’ll get to put them together again, with a little help. 💟

Frog Pile

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Frog Pile by Lori Anzalone – Cobble Hill – 500 pieces

I love frogs, and there are several frog figurines around my house, so of course I loved this image when I saw it; not only the subject matter, but they’re so bright and colorful – my kinda puzzle. It was more difficult than it looks, but not so much that it was frustrating. The perfect amount of challenge. The finished puzzle is absolutely stunning. 😍

The quality was pretty good, other than a very loose fit. Two or three pieces couldn’t be picked up to move to another place on the board without falling apart or using both hands. It wasn’t so bad that you couldn’t tell that you’d found the correct piece, but it wasn’t good either. With a lesser quality brand puzzle this would probably annoy me much more than it did with this one. The linen textured paper that Cobble Hill uses has such a great hand feel, the thick pieces and the overall quality of the brand made up for the shortcoming in the fit department.

The wet look on the frogs is done beautifully, and that little blue guy there has the best “smile” on his face! As far as his little buddy next to him, I think if I ever saw a black polka dotted frog out in nature I would steer pretty clear of it.

What can I say? Red is my favorite color, so I’m a little partial to the red ones. Doesn’t this one look like they’re ready to let you in on some juicy gossip they just heard at the pondwater cooler?

Psst. Did you hear what Veronica did last Friday at Señor Frogs? 😮

Vintage Poster

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles7 Comments

Vintage Poster – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

This Disney collage made me so happy; when it was released in 2018 I remember seeing it and telling myself that I would absolutely be assembling it. It took 3 years, but it finally happened! And thankfully it was just as entertaining as anticipated. 💗

The quality of this puzzle, however, wasn’t the usual Ravensburger fabulousness. It started with the sorting, the amount of puzzle dust was unusual, there was a LOT; the pieces had to go into a colander to sift it all out. That usually means it will be a bit loose fitting, and it was. Most likely it was produced near the end of the run when the die that cuts the shapes is getting dull. But other than those two issues, it was a lovely puzzle. The more matte finish was very nice to work with, and the image is stunning. Each poster has a different style to it, and made for a fantastic collage.

Get ready for a little reminiscing, there are many wonderful memories attached to these movies for me. I picked out a couple of favorites – none from the Memorable Disney Moments puzzle – to spend a little time talking about.

Robin Hood was a family favorite for us, it came out when I was 5 years old. We had a Robin Hood 8-track that we listened to in the car on road trips; it was basically the plot of the movie, without the slow parts – with all the same actors. My father was an umpire when I was young, and we spent every weekend traveling to tournaments for him to officiate. I tell you this to let you know that we were ALWAYS in the car, and we had 8-tracks of many Disney movies to keep us company. We especially loved the ones with really great music. Some of our favorites were The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh and The Blustery Day/The Honey Tree, Robin Hood, The Aristocats, etc. Most weekends in the 70s and 80s you could find us in our vehicle, driving somewhere several hours or more from home, happily belting out Disney songs at the top of our lungs. 🎶

My mother ADORED Roger Miller, and he voiced Allan-a-Dale in Robin Hood – the Rooster folk singer who narrated the movie. So, obviously we had to listen to this one over and over. The whole family loved Robin Hood, and although there aren’t that many songs in the movie, my sisters and I can all sing each one by heart…we could probably quote the entire movie. Phil Harris as Little John was my favorite – that man was crazy talented! There are so many wonderful memories associated with this movie for me.

**For any young people who may be reading this, 8-track tapes were like big, fat cassettes that you couldn’t rewind. Cassettes were small reel-to-reel devices that had recorded sound or music.**

Ah, The Aristocats. This one isn’t as well known, but for me it’s an absolute treasure. Another great movie with wonderful music (and Phil Harris) that takes me back to my childhood. Eva Gabor’s accent enthralled me as a child, and somehow her voice and the animation together made her seem so refined and fabulous. The little girl kitten, Marie, was so very sassy and she was my favorite character; she had one of my favorite lines in the movie, “Ladies do not start fights – but they can finish them!” The jazzy music was so fun to sing along to, especially the nonsensical lyrics. I LOVED IT!

This movie in particular makes me think of the theater in the next largest town to where we lived. They had matinees of kids movies for 75 cents or some ridiculously low price; mom used to take us there all the time. She’d make popcorn – to fill half a large brown paper bag – and off we’d go. We saw so many movies there, and The Aristocats sticks out in my mind. Maybe because I loved the movie so much, and mom was so great about taking us there to see so many wonderful movies. Many times we went and saw the same movie over and over again, and we saw The Aristocats more than once at that theater.

You never know as a parent when what you do for your kids will make a treasured memory. Mom probably just wanted a chance to sit down for a couple of hours and enjoy a good movie with the kids. What happened was she was making memories for us that decades later I still think about and cherish. A song from any one of those movies brings these memories back and makes me smile, and makes me grateful that I had a mom who loved spending time with her children. 💖

There are great memories associated with pretty much every movie in this puzzle, and a post about each and every section would be very, very long indeed. I just chose two of my favorites to share with you – excluding the movies from the big puzzle, because I’ve already talked about them quite a bit.