feature: irregular edge
Mushroom Glow by Tomasz Pietrzyk (Artifact)
Ash and I did an Artifact 286-piece puzzle, “Mushroom Glow” by Tomasz Pietrzyk (https://www.tomekpietrzyk.art/en/), puzzle design by Matt Lyon. We broke into it last Tuesday (11/11) & got about halfway finished, then picked it up & finished it today. The bottom quarter of the puzzle was really challenging — pretty dark and hard with some […]
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Winter Boughs by Laura McElfresh (Bewilderness)
Bewilderness (and at Etsy), 160 wooden pieces, tesselations. “Winter Boughs” by Laura McElfresh. Okay, wow, this was hard. A good third or half the pieces were all the exact same shape. There was one very large whimsy (pine-cone cut-outs) and a number of smaller whimsies (also pine-cones) and then a bunch of other pieces with […]
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Owlets in the Moonlight, Rosalind Solomon
A Wentworth 250-piece puzzle by Rosalind Solomon, by way of Hoefnagel. Although it was owl-themed, I wasn’t in love with the art — I’m not a fan of works where a large picture has the center hollowed out to have a different scene, or a collage. I did enjoy the multitudinous owl whimsies, though. … […]
Roch Urbaniak, Unexpected Visitor
My neighbor and I have a lovely little neighborhood wooden puzzle lending program, and she has this Artifact puzzle I’ve been yearning to do — “Unexpected Visitor” by Roch Urbaniak. The Urbaniak image is beautiful, and the cut design by David Figueiras was lovely — geometric rows, plus fun astronomical / night themed whimsies, with […]
Summer in the Tetons, Jan McGuire, Stave
Hoefnagel lets you have the opportunity to do the beautiful hand-cut puzzles that would otherwise be out of range for me — for instance, Stave’s “Summer in the Tetons” (510 pieces, dated 2004). I don’t know why the Stave website doesn’t list the artist, but googling suggests that this is a work by Colorado-based artist […]
Shroom Town, Kristian Adam (Artifact)
When I saw this puzzle, “Shroom Town” (art by Kristian Adam), it reminded me so much of Ash’s little sculptural mushroom villages, that I had to get it. We had fun assembling it today — I was more challenging than one would expect from a 211-piece puzzle. The irregular edge really added to the challenge! […]
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Karla Gerard Night Song, from Artifact
A beautiful puzzle loaned to us by my neighbor Yael; Ash and I did some of it, then I finished it off. I really enjoyed this puzzle — kind of a riff on “traditional” style pieces, with quite a few fun and interacting whimsies. Looking at the back, the almost radial symmetry was well done, […]
Louis Wain’s Fiddling Cat, from Artifact
I really loved Artifact‘s contribution to the Puzzle Parley 2024 — the speed puzzle, Louis Wain’s “Fiddling Cat“. So I picked it up, and Ash and I did it, speed-style (that is, with a timer) and I feel pretty good about our time! Which to be clear was more than double the time that the […]
Geode, Nervous Systems
A fun blue geode puzzle from NERVOUS Systems, via Hoefnagel. Another reviewer described this puzzle as easy, a review at which Ash and I looked askance, but, once we got going, it was — well, not “easy”, but very doable. (Much easier, at any rate, than the Wongo elephant it was paired with!) Bastet anointed […]
Rackham’s Forest Nymphs, FoxSmartBox
Arthur Rackham is one of my favorite Victorian children’s illustrators, so I was happy to pick up “Forest Nymphs” from FoxSmartBox. FoxSmartBox calls this image “Forest Nymphs”, but I’ve seen it more commonly labeled “Wood Nymphs” — for instance, at the NYPL digital collection, in an illustration of John Milton’s Comus (1634), published in 1921. […]
Moonlit Serenade, Fathom Puzzles
“Moonlit Serenade” — another amazing puzzle from Fathom Puzzles in Vermont — this one a complex, shaped wolf-themed puzzle, with cut-outs and some non-unique connections, requiring very careful attention to the grey-scale patterning — and a few times I flipped pieces over to verify a match based on the wood grain. I really loved the […]
Chris Yates Baffler 4949, Warp and Woof, Orange
August 4 – Hard! We started to make some progress but there’s a lot to go. August 7 – Finished! Chris Yates’ posts on flickr (or was it instagram?) about this puzzle — indispensable, honestly.
Hoefnagel Heart, Chestnut & Hemlock
A second puzzle by Terra Rodgers (Chestnut & Hemlock), in a Hoefnagel pack; this one is called “Hoefnagel Heart” and is based on the art of Joris Hoefnagel. Like the bunny puzzle just before this one, it has a regular, irregular edge — cleverly inserting each end of a bowed figure into half of a […]
Feeding the Bunnies, Chestnut & Hemlock
A beautifully cut puzzle from Terra Rodgers, Chestnut & Hemlock — “Feeding the Bunnies”, a 1918 work by Helen Hyde (1868-1918).
Ryoko Meditating Skeleton by Artifact
“Meditating Skeleton” by Ryoko, from Artifact. Super fun! I really liked the irregular border. The base puzzle shape was a skull, with little heart-shaped bone socket connectors. I’ve had this puzzle since April 2022, and just hadn’t gotten around to it, but I’m so glad I finally did. The back makes me think very much […]
Carnival in Venice, Dreamton
I got “Carnival in Venice” from Dreamton (available via etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/DREAMTON) and was excited to put it together. Very pretty cutting design, with lots of fleur-de-lis and similar sorts of formal, fluid symbols. An interesting trident interlock. And a really fun border. The pieces are a thin composite wood; I got the 200-piece (12″x8″) […]
Vladstudio Paris Map, Artifact
Really fun map puzzle – greatly enjoyed the border cut (the fleur-de-lis on the four corners, and the variable patterned border on the sides). I also liked the generally swirly nature of the pieces. Not a lot of whimsies, but I enjoyed the two-piece Toulouse-Lautrec style cat — I was puzzled by the bottom part […]
three-fer
Three-fer — three puzzles, three people … plus a cat. A fun family puzzling afternoon. Ash knocked off the hand-puzzle from Chestnut and Hemlock pretty quickly — felt very challenged initially but then pulled it together. I made minimal contributions. The Wentworth chocolates mini puzzle also went fast — Michele got the last piece in, […]
Bruce Riley, Stem Cell
Another June 5 puzzle that A and I did together. Artifact Puzzles, “Stem Cell” by Bruce Riley. Pretty image! Artifact description: This is a 191 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of Bruce Riley’s painting “Stem Cell”. Designed by Tara Flannery, the themed whimsies and miniature hexagonal connectors coupled with psychedelic colors and abstract shapes make for […]
