Year: 2023
Snowflake Blue Heron
A second Snowflake — I liked the subject matter of this one much, much better than the other one. Still challenging in terms of its colors, but the heron was pleasant to assemble. Mark Whitesell is credited, I suppose for the photo and not the puzzle cut.
Brian’s Worst Nightmare
A little 150-piece micro puzzle about cats that Michele and Ash knocked off Friday 9/15. MicroPuzzles.com, “Brian’s Worst Nightmare.”
Penelope Lake View with Wisteria
First “Penelope” puzzle, via Hoefnagel. “Lake View with Wisteria”, another landscape …. Interesting features: the borders are all slightly beveled, which is really nice. It’s a *little* helpful for solving, since even in curvy piece puzzles, there are often little flat-ish sections that could be edges — but here, there’s no questioning — beveling! This […]
Triskelion by Bradley Schenck
My first Wentworth puzzle, courtesy of Hoefnagel Puzzle Club, and I really enjoyed it. This Wentworth (“Triskelion”) is apparently not a “typical” Wentworth, per Hoefnagel, but the geometric cut had me having to do some mental readjustments to get into the groove (so to speak). The circular layering reminded me a bit of Mr. Gogo […]
Enchantment Lakes Snowflake
Snowflake, a new puzzle cutter to me, who is (per Hoefnagel) not currently cutting — but previously at Etsy. Unfortunately I was so eager to try this puzzle cutter that I went with an appealing title “Enchantment Lakes” even though I didn’t see the image, and it was the kind of landscape puzzle that I […]
Tom Thomson, Soft Maple in Autumn
Lovely puzzle from Stumpcraft, Tom Thomson’s “Soft Maple in Autumn” — sneaky puzzle cutting from Jasen Robillard, too; lots of little “fishies” cut out that made shapes look like they would take a convex instead of a concave (or vice versa). I particularly liked the unusual canoe cutout of a person carrying a canoe on […]
Tannenwald by Klimt, by Liberty
Beautiful image by Klimt, and a fast & fun puzzle by Liberty. Weirdly, the whimsies in this cut were western-style figures … not tailored to this image. Still, a nice fast puzzle for me and Ash.
This Is It by Cecile Albi
“This Is It” by Cecile Albi, mini-puzzle, puzzle design by Jasen Robillard. A really beautiful little 62-piece puzzle from StumpCraft. Ash and I knocked it off very quickly today. But, we didn’t notice this cool feature! That some of the pieces can be reversed to make a little back/front mini-whimsy scene.
Outsider Insider
Artifact Puzzles “Outsider Insider” by Patricio Betteo. 409 pieces, puzzle design by Jim Muller and Kathryn Flocken. Hoefnagel! Really colorful and fun. Harder than I would have thought, due to the geometric cuts and the geometric lines, or maybe due to covid brain. Anyway, fun!
Olga Suvorova, “Triptych”
My first DaVici — an Olga Suvorova “Triptych” puzzle. It was enjoyable, with lots of whimsies, lots of color. I’ve enjoyed Olga Suvorova‘s paintings for the past few years, and was happy to see this one on the Hoefnagel Puzzle Club. The previous puzzle-doer had kindly sorted them into the three pieces, and I did […]
Herding Cats
“Herding Cats”, a fun (cat-themed, obviously) shaped puzzle, with whimsies, from Nervous System. Art work by Anne Sullivan. Michele assembled quite a lot of this one at home (June 30) … then we did it with Ash, and Ash’s nimble and rapid fingers whipped through most of it really quickly, with some non-negligible participation by […]
Mr Gogo Fractal
My second Mr. Gogo; this one, a really difficult visual challenge with limited colors in a fractal (highly repetitive) design. Fun puzzling — but I don’t think this kind of image is my bag. On the other hand, Michele found it extremely arresting, and described it as perhaps the most exciting image they’ve seen in […]
Mr Gogo 5 layer flower mandala
My first Mr. Gogo, courtesy of the Hoefnagel Puzzle Club, a 5-layer flower mandala, labeled as a “teaser”. It was a beautiful image, repeated in 5 layers, with a clever two-layer stacked piece connecting each layer. More challenging than I thought it would be, due to the repeating images on the different layers, but I […]
Ochiai Rofu, “Kyoto Four Scenes”
Thanks to the Hoefnagel Club, I got this challenging quadriptych (I had to look that up) of “Kyoto Four Scenes“, from Artifact Puzzles (Ecru line). Puzzling: The individual puzzles hang together pretty well once assembled, but until all the pieces are in, there’s lots of slipping and sliding and holding together. The colors are distinguishable, […]
Soaring to New Heights – Stave
My first Stave! courtesy of the Hoefnagle Club. “Soaring to New Heights” (2023, 145 pieces, 4 swords Teaser). Well, Stave lives up to their reputation. Really challenging! I used a reference image of the solved puzzle to help me out whenever I was super stuck. The reference images … were not perfect matches with my […]
Peking Dragon
A Nautilus puzzle, “Peking Dragon“, 150 pieces, that Ash and I did on July 7 in something under 45 minutes …
The Skyline Was Beautiful on Fire
Finished Stumpcraft puzzle “The Skyline Was Beautiful on Fire” by Steve Driscoll. Fun and requiring a reasonable amount of attention to detail of color and shape. The picture online has more brilliant colors / contrasts than the printed puzzle, and two pieces had tiny wood dings, which made me sad. Otherwise, quite enjoyable, and wholly […]
Bumfuzzled 3 – 34 Keys
I really enjoyed the key theme. And, like the other Bumfuzzled, the puzzle was a bit more challenging than it looked like it was going to be — not really hard, but a fun way to focus attention. (Including the different shades of wood.) Minor critiques! The little drop-outs had not always been disconnected fully […]
Pride mini-puzzles
Two cute Pride mini-puzzles, from Michele, that Ash did recently.
