Quilts of Gee’s Bend, Galison

My neighbor Yael lent me this puzzle that I’d long wanted to do — “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend“, from Galison (1000 pieces). So much fun! Forty different quilts on a white background, effectively forty different small puzzles. I loved it! It’s a strip-cut puzzle. The puzzle material itself is quite thin — more sturdy […]
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World of Bridgerton, Manjit Thapp, Laurence King

Wow, this was so fun. Like a collage puzzle, with many discrete elements, but in a scene. Also, very interesting for the perspective — since it’s a three-dimensional room using classical perspective, there were ways to assemble the architectural elements based on size, angle, etc. This was my first Laurence King (that I remember) and […]
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Sprung by Coral Bourgeois, from AreYouGame

“Sprung” was one of two puzzles in a pack from AreYouGame — both by Coral Bourgeois. I really liked this image!
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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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Banned Books, Re-Marks Puzzle

In keeping with Banned Books Week (which in 2024 is this week, Sept. 23 – 27), my department finished the Banned Books puzzle from Re-Marks. Puzzle quality was fine, but I was disheartened to see a missing piece! Casualty of the work environment? or a manufacturing error? sigh.
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Ravensburger Fiesta Time

Ash and I did a 500-piece Ravensburger “Fiesta Time“, which we learned about from the 2024 US speed puzzling. No guacamole, sadly!
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Alala Love, New York Puzzle Company

While on a wooden jigsaw kick, I haven’t been doing my backlog of cardboard puzzles …. so I did one that I’ve been wanting to do for a while — “ʻAlalā Love”, a 500-piece puzzle illustrated by Caren Loebel-Fried, from the New York Puzzle Company‘s “Cornell Lab of Ornithology” series. It doesn’t look like the […]
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Coral Bourgeois, “Elephants”, from AreYouGame

Ash and I enjoyed this — it was a little more challenging than you would think from a grid image — but it was beautiful, a nice laser-cut feel. And elephants! Coral Bourgeois is the artist — I wonder if she’s a relation to Louise Bourgeois? and the puzzle maker is “Are You Game“, which […]
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Samuel Hayward “Cat in Garden”, Artifact

We three did this nicely cat-whimsy-filled “Cat in Garden” puzzle from Artifact today, with art from Samuel Hayward. Please note that Zeniba is in a very similar pose and attitude as the titular “Cat in Garden”. Artifact’s description:
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Robert Burns’ The Hunt from Liberty

Hoefnagel sent me an amazing pack, with this puzzle from Liberty, and “Happily Ever Aftering” from Elms. This puzzle features “Diana and Her Nymphs” by Robert Burns (the painter, 1869-1941, not the poet of the same name, 1759-1796). “Diana and Her Nymphs” is a circa 1926 mural painted at the Crawford’s tearoom in Edinburgh. Lots […]
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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 […]
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Wentworth minis

Ash and I did three Wentworth mini puzzles today — I would say, “Starry Night” was the easiest, with the Helix Nebula in the middle, and the “fractal geometry” was the hardest — with several identical pieces, eight each of a sort of triangular triskelion (maybe there is a better word for that) rotated counterclockwise, […]
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Barred Owl, Adolfo Valle, Lighthouse Puzzles

Enjoyed this Lighthouse Puzzles mini-puzzle, which was sent to me free in hopes I would review it. The artist, Adolfo Valle, is Michigan-based, as is Lighthouse. (While I love lighthouses, does Michigan … have them? I know there are lots of lakes including Lake Michigan, and yes, the Great Lakes are big enough for tides, […]
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Stack Attack, Rebel Puzzles

“Stack Attack” is the second puzzle Ash and I did from Rebel Puzzles, and we enjoyed this one, too! It was … definitely challenging, with its abstract and vaguely midcentury style graphics. But once we got into the swing of it, we were able to finish it off in a reasonable time! (Like, an hour […]
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Stave, A Lasting Impression

In a recent pack from Hoefnagel, I had two fun hand-cut puzzles — one from Carol Ottenberg (aka Ledgewood Puzzles), and this one from Stave. Both were delightful. It was a fun & thematically connected pack, because Carol’s puzzle was a Monet image, and this one was … inspired by? depicting? well, at least referencing […]
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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 […]
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Elephant, Wongo

I wanted to like this elephant by Wongo puzzles (courtesy of Hoefnagel) — I liked the image, all the fun patterns, and of course, ELEPHANT. But it was so fiddly — some of the pieces were really, super tiny. It took Ash and me several hours, together, and we had to drag in a third […]
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Happily Ever Aftering, David Galchutt, Elms

Really lovely hand-cut puzzle via Hoefnagel, cut by “Lisa” at Elms. “Happily Ever Aftering”, by David Galchutt. Gosh, this was beautiful and fun to do.
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Pixel Peaks by Julie Amlin, Puzzle Lab

We did another fun Puzzle Lab puzzle today — “Pixel Peaks“, with art by Julie Amlin (the original artwork is called “Above the Blue”, but it was renamed for the puzzle ….). The whole family, plus Cass, worked on it. Puzzle Lab says: Sometimes, waters are turbulent. But there’s always a safe shoreline and a […]
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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. […]
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