I do wooden jigsaw puzzles and take pictures of them.
Twigg, 315 pieces. My first puzzle from this laser cutter. The pieces are thin as is the fashion these days; the cut is perfectly fine, and the colors are good. Heart-shaped connectors and a number of whimsies with smaller versions of themselves cut out, which is not my favorite because of effects on ease of moving chunks around. 3/5
Liberty, 453 pieces. A good classic Liberty with a lot of stuff going on in the image. 3/5
Waterford, 1059 pieces. This one was a killer! So many repeating areas of color and such a high piece count. It took a while to crack it, though eventually I did succeed. Lots of bird whimsies. 8/10 Stave scale.
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| some of the bird whimsies, many with detailed back carving |
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| mouse edges |
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| one musical note as bird perch |
Liberty, 480 pieces. Unusually, many of the whimsies here are nearly identical, in order to create the fairy ring. A nice variation with a very busy, difficult image. 3/5
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| fairy ring, holding hands |
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| fairies and dwarves |
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| tug of war |
Artifact/Ecru, 409 pieces. Another nice border from Artifact--this was the pairs speed puzzle, which I borrowed from a kind friend. The repetition-with-difference in the image added difficulty. 3/5
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| phoenix> |
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| pegasus |
P.H. Sargent, 439 pieces. A nice vintage puzzle with a little bit of that old-puzzle smell; no whimsies, but enough variety to keep me going. 3/5
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Mosaic, 500 pieces. Nicely colored; I find their whimsies/cuts a little thin/leaf-like for my taste a lot of the time, but it worked well here. 3/5
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| a couple of two-piece whimsies, mostly people |
Oxcaiux, 340 pieces. A bit disappointing to find that this is a copy of a Wentworth extra difficult cut, but it is definitely extra difficult. Small pieces (smaller than Wentworth, I believe) and bright colors. 3/5
Famiuly, 215 pieces. Acrylic has a very different hand feel than wood, which means it always feels weird to me. But it has the same capacity to take very sharp laser cuts so you know for sure when a piece fits. This one was pretty difficult because a lot of the pieces were were hard to categorize by color/the edges were hard to see because they were transparent. For a person looking for an unusual challenge. 3/5
Nautilus, 416 pieces. A nicely colored image with lots of cat whimsies. 3/5
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| kitty |
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| multipiece fish |
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| multipiece kitty |
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| two kitties investigating a bowl |
P.H. Sargent, 261 pieces. New-to-me vintage cutter with colors that have held up really well and nicely sized pieces. 3/5
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| not a lot of whimsies and I don't think they're themed, but the little pieces between the camel's legs have stood the test of time, which is good |
Artifact, 439 pieces. What an interesting image! More difficult than you might think because colors did repeat a bit in different-sized frames. Mostly rectangular pieces with some whimsies. The image itself is very dreamlike. 3/5
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| closeup of one of the odd things going on |
Stave, 110 pieces. This one was a real challenge--even though the isolated areas seem like they'd make it easier to fit the whimsies in, in practice I was nearly defeated by two very similar pieces. And yet, as always, when the fit is right, the rightness is so evident you wonder how you could ever have missed it. 7/10
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| There are also hidden images like this sheep that are only really visible when the puzzle is assembled--though this image is all on one piece, it's still very hard to identify until you see the whole image |
