Up at 3 am this morning, couldn’t sleep, feeling awful – then I decided to sit in front of my puzzle for a bit. As always, it helps. This is part of the reason I love puzzles❣
With no explanation other than “that’s the way it was”, I had a great time working on the green shirt this morning. There are days when large areas of one color are so satisfying to assemble, and this was one of them. The random cut helps a bit, and the pieces seemed to fly into place – so much fun!
2018 was a quite a year for me and my puzzles; I slowed down quite a bit due to physical problems, but still somehow managed to assemble 279 puzzles totaling 105,093 pieces! Wow! Don’t be too impressed by the number of puzzles though, there were a LOT of micro puzzles this year at 40 pieces or less. They’re so much fun that if I were in the right mood I could put together a dozen or more of them in a day. 🙂
The piece counts breakdown was interesting for me to compile – I was shocked at how it all turned out. It was an eye-opening exercise for me, and has me wanting to keep track this year as I go along. With kids puzzles, micros, and wooden puzzles with odd counts there were a lot of them to keep track of, but I ended up only counting the “regular” ones. Here’s how it all worked out…
100 pieces – 16
300 pieces – 61
500 pieces – 80
750 pieces – 2
1000 pieces – 28
1500 pieces – 1
Other – 91
Sugar Magnolia by Phil Lewis – Liberty Puzzles – 881 pieces
Shoes – Lafayette Puzzle Factory – 500 pieces
Birds by Jane Tattersfield – Liberty Puzzles – 509 pieces
Birds (Alternate Solution) by Jane Tattersfield – Liberty Puzzles – 509 pieces
Pattern 4 by Patchwork – Milton Bradley – 300 pieces
These were some of my favorite puzzles of 2018. Sugar Magnolia (given to me by my husband for my 50th birthday) was my hands-down absolute favorite puzzle I’ve ever assembled! Shoes, and really all the mini shaped puzzles from Lafayette Puzzle Factory gave me such great joy; and my son loved them so much he was always up to come hang out with me and help assemble them. ❤ Birds and it’s alternate solution made me pretty damned happy too! I bought that one for myself for our 30th anniversary and Mother’s Day which were only one day apart last year. It was challenging and beautiful and altogether wonderful. And lastly the Patterns puzzles were perfect images for my kind of puzzling and I had a great time with all 3 of them.
There were 67 different brands that I assembled this year. Ravensburger was the cardboard puzzle brand that showed up most often, and Wentworth was the wooden brand that saw the most time on my boards. From Andrews & Blaine all the way to Zen – there were a lot of friends both new and old. How many brands did you work last year? I’m looking forward to finding more fun puzzles and new brands to try in 2019. 😎
As for 2019, I fretted a bit about setting goals and then I remembered that there won’t be a penalty if they aren’t reached. Duh. 300 puzzles seems like a giant goal to accomplish – that’s 25 puzzles a month! But oh well, if I get there I’ll be super proud, right? As for piece count I’ve settled on 110,000. Piece count goal scares me more than the puzzle count for some reason.
So did you set a puzzle goal for this year? I’d love to hear what they are! Planning to just find more time for yourself to puzzle? Finishing a large piece count jigsaw? Buy yourself a wooden one? Start a puzzle blog? Try new brands? Perhaps your goal will inspire me and other puzzlers too!
Already working on this year’s first 1000 piece puzzle ☺
Good morning and Happy 2019! I’ve already started my first 1000 piece puzzle of the year, and am making excellent progress. I’m not thrilled with the fit of the pieces, but I love the image and am determined to enjoy myself. (Ain’t that life in a nutshell? It’s how you work/deal with what you’re given.)
I wish all my family, friends, and puzzle people a safe, healthy, love-filled year with plenty of opportunities to spend time with those you care about – and hopefully time for a puzzle or two! 💖
My oldest son and I are working on his Christmas present today. He’s a giant movie buff, and asked for a movie puzzle that we could work on together, glue, frame, and hang in his room. Awesome present for both of us!
We’re listening to stand-up comedy, working on it together, and hope to have it finished by tomorrow at the very latest. If we really get going and finish it quickly, I might even have time to get one more puzzle in before the end of the year!
**Update**
It took less than 2.5 hours and we finished it already!
My Christmas present to mom this year wasn’t the usual jigsaw puzzle. In fact, I don’t have any idea whether or not there is a complete puzzle here at all! Intrigued??
I was in bed, bored with television, looking at eBay for some reason. I’ve never shopped there, it was just curiosity; looking at the crazy prices people will pay for “luxury” wooden puzzles made my head spin! Anyway I came across this box of vintage wooden puzzle pieces – 5 pounds of pieces all thrown together in one storage box – with no boxes, pictures, or brands. Oh man, I can’t tell you how much that got me going, I wanted that box!
Imagine the challenge of hundreds and hundred of pieces with no guides at all. No piece counts, brand names, images, not even a guarantee of an entire puzzle. Plus, they’re all wooden pieces!
Since hubby does the eBay thing all the time, I told him about it. We discussed it, how much I wanted it, what I was willing to spend, etc. He had no problem with the purchase and won the auction for me. 🎉
Mom always says that she doesn’t need gifts or “things”, she’d much rather have an “experience” as a present. This is true, she’s a bit of a hoarder and in her 70’s, there’s not a lot she actually needs. So I decided to present her this box of puzzle pieces (that belong to me) as this year’s gift. The actual gift though is the time spent together working through this box of pieces to hopefully put together a puzzle, or two, or however many there are.
I have no idea how long it’s going to take us, but I am so looking forward to the challenge!
It could turn out that there isn’t a complete puzzle in the box, and being completely truthful I absolutely don’t care. If there are several incomplete puzzles or several complete ones it doesn’t matter in the least. This box is hours and hours I get to spend with mom, talking, laughing, playing with gorgeous puzzle pieces – I wouldn’t trade that for all the luxury puzzles in the world! ❤❤
