“Poohsticks” (image by Iwona Lifsches, cut design by Ashley Boyd, puzzle by Artifact) was the second in a Hoefnagel pack (with a BCB puzzle) that I knocked off while recovering from a bug. This one was interesting — the majority of the pieces had one of three standard interlocking shapes, a tulip, a fish fin, or a duckling (least common). With standardized identical connectors, there were many possible fits that could be distinguished only with careful attention to the colors, and the whimsy shapes helped too. I got into the groove of it fairly quickly, and enjoyed the assemblage. The last chunks were the solid blue water.
Artifact description (and I’m glad they described the title, because I did not remember this game from Winnie the Pooh):
This is a 261 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of “Poohsticks” by Iwona Lifsches.
Poohsticks is a race that Winnie-the-Pooh famously played, where you drop sticks on one side of a bridge and see whose stick shows up first on the other side of the bridge.
The colorful art is paired with a cheerful puzzle design by Ashley Boyd with super cut whimsies, including some sweet multi-piece whimsies.
This puzzle has square pieces but some false edges and just three connector shapes: flower, and lily and duck connectors, which are repeated throughout the puzzle (that is the connectors are non-unique), which means the pieces can fit together wrong, but the distinct colors make it easy to tell if you have it wrong, so the puzzle is overall just average hard.
Like all our puzzles, laser-cut from 1/4″ thick wood. Packaged in a blue box with magnetic clasp. Made in USA.
This puzzle was used for the April 2021 Speed-Puzzling contest.
9.5″ by 12″
