Orbicular Geode Puzzle No. 1142

Nervous System, 355-375 pieces (marked that way).  The geode puzzles are so beautifully colored and with a complex, organic cut.  A lot of fun to do but very difficult to see how it goes together. 4/5

Yuletide Memories, Beryl Peters Designs

Liberty, 690 pieces. A big one! A lot of present/holiday-themed whimsies, unsurprisingly; my favorite was the ball surrounded by jacks.  Similar colors for the different vignettes made this one a tough challenge to assemble! 4/5

multipiece snowman

multipiece train (three different parts)

ball and jacks

kid on tricycle

Piet Mondrian, Oostzijdse Mill

Artifact, 181 pieces.  Small but very nice. With geometric pieces and big areas of similar color, there's a fine line between hard and unduly frustrating.  This puzzle successfully stays on the hard side, and I'm generally a fan of the way Tetris-like pieces break up an image and complicate assembly.  4/5

John Atkinson Grimshaw, On the River Greta, Lake District, England

Liberty, 609 pieces. A very challenging Liberty, with the kind of construction I expect more from Artifact--a number of whimsies embedded in circles.  The colors took a while to become legible--it's a dark palette--but the ultimate result was very nice.  5/5

multipiece tree

two-person canoe, with some of the encircled whimsies above

Pavillons Arbores (Naval Flags)

Penelope, 500. Side note: Penelope puzzles have a wide variety of dimensions and come in very different boxes. Even the 500 piece puzzles are generally not exactly the same in dimensions and neither are the boxes. Even in our age of customization, it's not handmade customization; I can't imagine what it took to have all those different boxes made (many Penelope puzzles are stored flat, so you need dimensions that match the puzzle).  It's a view into a different, lost world.  Anyway, this is a view into an even more lost world--old flags of governmental entities that are mostly gone, though it's interesting to see to what extent the flags portrayed as large/central were more likely to survive into the modern age than the smaller ones. A lot of fun to put together as I figured out various orientations of different flags. 4/5

A Resounding Success

Liberty, 513 pieces. Really elaborate multipiece cat whimsies--two of them, seemingly nearly identical (I think you couldn't quite have moved pieces freely, but maybe!). Cat and music and snow whimsies. 4/5

two piece guitar

kitties!

drum set

Atlas

Penelope, 500 pieces. Another heir to the dissected map--faded colors initially added to the challenge, but ultimately subtle shadings reasserted themselves in guiding assembly, which is a phenomenon I really enjoy.  3/5

A Plethora of Fish

Liberty, 470 pieces. Dr. Seuss images are always fun, though this one had fewer than usual of the Seussian whimsies I really like. A number of multipiece whimsies, including a large Seussian whale, a boy fishing from a pier, a surfboarder, and a conch shell.  3/5

a whale of a multipiece whimsy

sailing ship

surfboarder

fishing from pier

conch

Late Bloomers

Stave, 235 pieces. The seller, out of an abundance of caution, sold this at a discount because the pieces were so tight. I didn't notice for assembly, but it is true that disassembly was much more difficult than usual. Unsurprisingly beautiful colors and clever cuts (the wheelbarrow turning berries into watermelons was the best, though I also liked the fakeout Stave clown pieces scattered throughout).  6/10

one Stave clown fakeout piece

wheelbarrow

gardener touching flower

teapot outline with interacting pot and cup in middle

scissors cutting flower; not really sure if that's a worm supposed to be coming out

another fake Stave clown piece in the center, also touching the actual clown

Robert Burns, The Hunt (Diana and her Nymphs)

Liberty, 509 pieces. One of the harder Liberty puzzles that I can remember doing: the colors are similar throughout the picture but they are also broken up in each individual part, so it's pretty hard to follow part of the image from piece to piece. I have put in some pictures of the back because there's basically no way to see the details from the front. Puzzle addicts only. 4/5