This puzzle got started on Tuesday afternoon, but unfortunately there were things that had to be done yesterday that took up the entire morning. When I finally did get home I was wrung out and ready to do absolutely nothing – and that is what I did.
Life is constantly trying to insert itself into our puzzling time; the family wants food, clean clothes, a tidy house – so rude!
Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to it today and make some more progress. I was enjoying myself before quitting time came. 🙂
This was a fun and wonderfully challenging puzzle, and I think the finished image is very pretty; it reminds me of my mom who always had yarn or crochet thread with her when she went anywhere. In addition, mom got this puzzle for us at the thrift store – it has her written all over it.
It was one of those Springbok puzzles with a very tight fit, which we know I am not a fan of; but even though the fit was a bit annoying I had a great time putting this together. It took my aging brain a little longer than normal to adapt itself to working with a random cut, but the challenge of it had me completely engrossed.
Thrift stores have so many treasures like this to find, I miss my black belt thrift store shopper – not only was she the best mom ever, she also always found amazing puzzles for us to try. Love you mom. 💖💖
Vintage Cake Shop by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces
I don’t assemble many 1000 piece Buffalo puzzles, it has something to do with the pieces; they all look exactly the same and sometimes I just don’t want to deal with it. I know, it doesn’t make much sense, but I never said that I was rational or that my brain was sensible – you just have to roll with it sometimes. 🤪
That being said, I loved this puzzle much more than I thought I would. It was more pastel than I’m used to seeing in Aimee Stewart’s work, but it made for a beautiful image and a great assembly. It was a little more challenging than I’d assumed, but entertaining and absolutely lovely.
Buffalo puzzles have excellent quality, with thick pieces that fit together well and very nice image reproduction. They also have a large catalog, including many exclusive images from Star Wars, Josephine Wall, Charles Wysocki, and Aimee Stewart. I’m not sure why I have a thing against them for having boxy pieces that all look the same, but I do. It doesn’t bother me with their smaller piece count puzzles, but with 1000 pieces or larger I just don’t care for it. Once I start working with the pieces though, it doesn’t bother me as much and I end up having a great time, like with this puzzle.
This is much more pale than I’m used to seeing when assembling an Aimee Stewart puzzle image, but it was still captivating and difficult to walk away from.
The display case of cakes was the most difficult section, and ended up being assembled last. All those cakes! It looks like a nice little shop to visit for some coffee and cake though, doesn’t it?
I’ve got a 2000 piece Cake Shed puzzle from Buffalo in the to do pile, and after assembling this puzzle I’m looking forward to seeing how the pieces are and how it fits together. I may try to get that one done sometime this month. More cake for everyone! 🍰
Good Housekeeping Collection – New York Puzzle Company – 1000 pieces
I absolutely loved this puzzle, both because it was a collage and great fun and because it brought back memories. It was assembled once already. My mom and daughter did the majority of the assembly and I came in at the end and helped out; I didn’t feel as though I actually assembled it since they did most of the work, so it didn’t make it onto the blog. I have great memories of the three generations of women working on this together, and it’s a puzzle I will never get rid of.
I’ve done quite a few NY Puzzle Company puzzles, and I really like them. Their catalog has a lot of magazine covers, and I find they are great fun to assemble. The quality is very good too; thick pieces, very nice fit, and great image reproduction. I’ve never had a bad experience with this brand, which is something I can’t say about most of the brands I’ve assembled.
I just loved the look of this cover, how both the woman’s dress and the dog’s coat blend into the background color. (Plus, you can’t go wrong with a dog!) Several of the covers were the same, where the background color is the same as the clothes of the women so that they blend together.
I also was glad to see that not every cover is about fashion or cooking or some other “ladylike” pursuit – we ladies can do so much more than that! There were several covers of women doing things like working on a car tire, and even what I think was a suffragette being hauled off to prison. I like it!
My mother loved this puzzle, and that’s probably part of why I loved it too. It was great quality, a fun assembly, and a wonderfully challenging image – but even more than that it reminds me of her. She put this one together with my daughter and I before, but she loved it so much that she didn’t re-donate it, I found it at her house with her things. It’s a keeper for me, definitely.
It’s taking me a little bit to get my brain back into “random cut mode”, but I think it’s finally there. Thank goodness, because this puzzle has been more challenging than I bargained for already. I’ve been assembling grid cut puzzles almost exclusively this month, and I’ve had to wait for my brain to remember how to think around the random cut pieces and how they go together.
I’ve only gotten these two balls of yarn completed, but oh my has it been challenging! It’s mostly been getting used to the random cut, but assembling skeins of yarn isn’t as easy as I’d hoped either. I’m sure I’ve put together yarn puzzles before, but I don’t remember any specifically; maybe the memory of them is why it’s taken me so long to finally start assembling this one. 😉
The image reminds me of mom, but not only because she got the puzzle at the thrift store for us, it’s the yarn. My mother did crafts all her adult life and there was always yarn, crochet thread, beads, knitting needles, etc. all over our house. Stored in closets, hung in garment bags, next to her chair, in the office – pretty much anywhere there was a flat surface or a place to stack things up you could be sure to find some craft supplies.
She always had to have some sort of project going (most of the time there were several projects in the works), and always took her knitting or crochet bag with her when she went anywhere. Waiting in the doctor’s office or sitting in the car waiting on one of her kids after band practice she’d be crocheting a coaster or knitting an afghan, or whatever beautiful project was being worked on at the moment. There was always a “go bag” of yarn or thread near her purse so that she’d be ready if she had to go anywhere.
Mom taught me to knit, crochet, embroidery, cross-stitch, and even a little sewing; I really only knit anymore, and it’s not very often. I’m set for life in the yarn department though, I’ve got quite a bit of it stashed away from mom’s house, and there are still so many more boxes to go through!
My Jigsaw Journal 