Aunt Audrey, hubby and I have been burning the evening oil and sometimes the midnight as well. We’ve been working on jigsaw puzzles and so far we’ve completed two 1000 piece scenes, one of Van Gough’s Irises, and currently a Peggy’s Cove folk art piece by artist Eric Dowdle. It’s surprisingly addictive and I’m finding it difficult to turn off the light to go to bed even when my eyes are burning out of my head. It doesn’t help with the insomnia either, when I find myself pondering a particular piece that has alluded me. It never ceases to amaze how you can look over the pieces many times and not find the one you seek. Even looking at the picture of the completed scene and knowing the shape and colour it should have and I still can’t secure it. Then because of human arrogance, thinking I could never be so incompetent as to not find the piece, I think probably my poodle Henri must have eaten it and I ask him..."Did you eat mommy's puzzle piece?". Then I get up the next morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh pair of eyes and that elusive piece practically jumps into my fingers and I place it with smug satisfaction while Henri seems to say, "See mom, I told you I didn’t do it!"
Puzzles haven’t been a part of my life since childhood and quite frankly, I was surprised at the availability in stores considering the fast paced internet and video games have taken over the world. Although I did notice that you can buy electronic puzzles online to play on your phones and ThinkPad’s. I assumed the younger generations are attention deficit now, lacking the patience to take on a twelve to twenty-four hour commitment so I was pleasantly surprised the puzzle has survived the modern day entertainment devices.
There were endless choices in several shops in the mall, a varied selection of sizes and prices and I noticed that Costco has a section of puzzles on my last visit and even the local Pharmasave has them on a shelf. As children we used to have a family puzzle set up on a card table as not to tie up the dining table and we would pick away at it for days. Santa brought them, a fun project for all the family to work on. Maybe the Little’s will have to reinstate that tradition, a communal puzzle on Christmas Day, with eggnog and ribbon candy, (those of you that are my age will know what delicious treat that is)!
It’s been awhile since one lay out across our dining room table, perhaps as far back as when Aunt Audrey stayed with us during her condo renovation and quite frankly I forget the fun of piecing a puzzle together. It’s an adventure in identifying and detecting through shapes and colour to put together something beautiful.
The original jigsaw puzzles were cut out of wood, but the new paperboard versions are much cheaper to produce. I looked online for puzzles and you can still buy them on wood bases but of course the prices of those can reach a hundred dollars, or even more. A painting or two-dimensional art work is clued to the cardboard before cutting and the choice of patterns is endless. Puzzles are like rug hooking in that you need to like the project you are working on, and like rug hooking, I make my choices by colour, that always attracts me first, and then the subject. After this folk art piece we will be working on a couple of clipper ships with a beautiful hazy sunset and sparkling ocean. Hubby should like that!
I guess I’m not a puzzle aficionado; I never had a system on how to organize the pieces other than picking out the edges to start and then digging through the piles to find what I’m looking for. Audrey has it down to a science, separating in one of two ways, by piece shape or colour depending on the type of puzzle. I’m not sure which one works best for my brain and I think it depends on the cut of the puzzle on how it should be split into piles. The Iris’s pieces were uniformly normal, or traditional looking like the puzzles of my youth, so separating by shape worked nicely. This second puzzle, the folk art picture, the pieces were cut in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with pieces as small as a pinkie fingernail to doubles, larger, odd shapes, so this one was best categorized by colour.
Although I seek the most intriguing picture, the manufacturer is important as well and I looked for a high standard of quality. The feel of the pieces are paramount. I like solid and firm, the picture well backed with cardboard and cut clean, so the pieces almost click together. Puzzles aren’t expensive overall but some are more cheaply made and no bargain. After a casual walk down the Bridgewater Mall to have a look at what is out there, we purchased the next project. Until this latest addiction runs its course I’ll need a subsequent project; but I do need to get back to rug hooking. Since Honey passed I haven’t felt like turning on Netflix and I hook with the TV on, so my evenings are open and I’m filling them with the quiet fun of a shared project with my aunt and hubby, and my thoughts focus on the work at hand not the sadness of loss. I can’t serve both masters simultaneously so I’ll have to take turns, force myself to leave the table to sit in my living room with frame on my lap and hook one of my new Christmas stocking designs. This puzzle thing is temporary and will peter out but for now it fills a void nicely.
I like a challenge but only to a degree. Audrey brought down a puzzle of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that boggled the mind. It looked pixilated as each piece of the puzzle was made up of tiny pictures. Two hours in yielded only four pieces fit together. Glasses on and glasses off as I had to examine them up close with a magnifier. My eyes were crossed with the lack of better lighting. My brain went into overload and frustration rose until I was fidgeting in the chair. I don’t need instant gratification but this was like walking in mud up to the knees. A puzzle shouldn’t take longer than a few days and this one would have been ringing in the new year!
So while brainteasers were on my mind, the idea came to me to design a puzzle pattern. So I’ve created two 16” x 16” pillow topper or chair seat. It can be filled in beautifully with hit and miss, mixing up the directions vertically and horizontally for more interest. Or even solids or luscious plaids filling each space with their boldness, so many ways to make it impressive. The grid of the puzzle pieces would be done in black to create the shadow for piece separation and the extra piece sitting on top will have a shadow along one side to appear as if it is stacked. I’ll also be working on a larger rug sized puzzle with the pieces on top, a few pieces randomly here and there for added interest. I’m thinking I should hook the pillow for a demo in the shop. It might be just the piece to get me back into hooking. So many projects, so little time!
I mentioned Henri previously. The fun part of putting a puzzle together is my cream poodle, Henri. Always by my side, he lies under the table and when a piece gets brushed off with our sleeve, dragged to the edge and falls to the carpet below, he is waiting. He chews on it a bit. The glue might taste bad so he doesn’t totally demolish it, but there are teeth marks and saliva in the paper. Every puzzle we’ve done has at least one piece that is misshapen and rough, making it even more special.
Puzzles haven’t been a part of my life since childhood and quite frankly, I was surprised at the availability in stores considering the fast paced internet and video games have taken over the world. Although I did notice that you can buy electronic puzzles online to play on your phones and ThinkPad’s. I assumed the younger generations are attention deficit now, lacking the patience to take on a twelve to twenty-four hour commitment so I was pleasantly surprised the puzzle has survived the modern day entertainment devices.
There were endless choices in several shops in the mall, a varied selection of sizes and prices and I noticed that Costco has a section of puzzles on my last visit and even the local Pharmasave has them on a shelf. As children we used to have a family puzzle set up on a card table as not to tie up the dining table and we would pick away at it for days. Santa brought them, a fun project for all the family to work on. Maybe the Little’s will have to reinstate that tradition, a communal puzzle on Christmas Day, with eggnog and ribbon candy, (those of you that are my age will know what delicious treat that is)!
It’s been awhile since one lay out across our dining room table, perhaps as far back as when Aunt Audrey stayed with us during her condo renovation and quite frankly I forget the fun of piecing a puzzle together. It’s an adventure in identifying and detecting through shapes and colour to put together something beautiful.
The original jigsaw puzzles were cut out of wood, but the new paperboard versions are much cheaper to produce. I looked online for puzzles and you can still buy them on wood bases but of course the prices of those can reach a hundred dollars, or even more. A painting or two-dimensional art work is clued to the cardboard before cutting and the choice of patterns is endless. Puzzles are like rug hooking in that you need to like the project you are working on, and like rug hooking, I make my choices by colour, that always attracts me first, and then the subject. After this folk art piece we will be working on a couple of clipper ships with a beautiful hazy sunset and sparkling ocean. Hubby should like that!
I guess I’m not a puzzle aficionado; I never had a system on how to organize the pieces other than picking out the edges to start and then digging through the piles to find what I’m looking for. Audrey has it down to a science, separating in one of two ways, by piece shape or colour depending on the type of puzzle. I’m not sure which one works best for my brain and I think it depends on the cut of the puzzle on how it should be split into piles. The Iris’s pieces were uniformly normal, or traditional looking like the puzzles of my youth, so separating by shape worked nicely. This second puzzle, the folk art picture, the pieces were cut in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with pieces as small as a pinkie fingernail to doubles, larger, odd shapes, so this one was best categorized by colour.
Although I seek the most intriguing picture, the manufacturer is important as well and I looked for a high standard of quality. The feel of the pieces are paramount. I like solid and firm, the picture well backed with cardboard and cut clean, so the pieces almost click together. Puzzles aren’t expensive overall but some are more cheaply made and no bargain. After a casual walk down the Bridgewater Mall to have a look at what is out there, we purchased the next project. Until this latest addiction runs its course I’ll need a subsequent project; but I do need to get back to rug hooking. Since Honey passed I haven’t felt like turning on Netflix and I hook with the TV on, so my evenings are open and I’m filling them with the quiet fun of a shared project with my aunt and hubby, and my thoughts focus on the work at hand not the sadness of loss. I can’t serve both masters simultaneously so I’ll have to take turns, force myself to leave the table to sit in my living room with frame on my lap and hook one of my new Christmas stocking designs. This puzzle thing is temporary and will peter out but for now it fills a void nicely.
I like a challenge but only to a degree. Audrey brought down a puzzle of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that boggled the mind. It looked pixilated as each piece of the puzzle was made up of tiny pictures. Two hours in yielded only four pieces fit together. Glasses on and glasses off as I had to examine them up close with a magnifier. My eyes were crossed with the lack of better lighting. My brain went into overload and frustration rose until I was fidgeting in the chair. I don’t need instant gratification but this was like walking in mud up to the knees. A puzzle shouldn’t take longer than a few days and this one would have been ringing in the new year!
So while brainteasers were on my mind, the idea came to me to design a puzzle pattern. So I’ve created two 16” x 16” pillow topper or chair seat. It can be filled in beautifully with hit and miss, mixing up the directions vertically and horizontally for more interest. Or even solids or luscious plaids filling each space with their boldness, so many ways to make it impressive. The grid of the puzzle pieces would be done in black to create the shadow for piece separation and the extra piece sitting on top will have a shadow along one side to appear as if it is stacked. I’ll also be working on a larger rug sized puzzle with the pieces on top, a few pieces randomly here and there for added interest. I’m thinking I should hook the pillow for a demo in the shop. It might be just the piece to get me back into hooking. So many projects, so little time!
I mentioned Henri previously. The fun part of putting a puzzle together is my cream poodle, Henri. Always by my side, he lies under the table and when a piece gets brushed off with our sleeve, dragged to the edge and falls to the carpet below, he is waiting. He chews on it a bit. The glue might taste bad so he doesn’t totally demolish it, but there are teeth marks and saliva in the paper. Every puzzle we’ve done has at least one piece that is misshapen and rough, making it even more special.
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