The California Puzzle

Hardwood Art Creations, 163 pieces. Laser cut puzzle from a cutter who's new to me (via Etsy).  Thin pieces--a bit thinner than Wentworth even.  Nice California-themed whimsies; the lack of printing on the wood means that some of the whimsies can be burned into pictures.  Cutting style random enough that the puzzle stayed challenging throughout, especially given the uneven edges.  I enjoyed it and it would be nice for someone looking for something a bit different or for a California-themed puzzle.  3/5

Go for the Gold

Stave, 110 pieces.  Lovely Teaser (Xmas present, thank you!) with clever dropouts to make it a little harder to assemble.  7/10 not the hardest but very pretty.

Alpha bet Soup

Stave, 1035 pieces. It's possible that this is Stave's best deal, piece for piece, but it is not for the faint of heart.  Some very clever piece associations with different letters, and then very difficult swirly pieces to finish the job aided (sort of) by vague color coordination between the swirls and the specific letters.  9/10 pretty serious puzzling.

clowns and themed pieces

everything else

mostly assembled except for swirls and a few themed pieces that remained mysterious

another closeup of this stage

hah! not in order because I didn't quite manage to complete them in order

That "yellow" submarine had me confused for a while

"zephyr"--sure, that's what the wind is 

This fish didn't fit in until the swirl was in place--very unusual and if more of the pieces had been like that I would've gone bonkers

"jalapeno" took forever to figure out too

alphabetical order courtesy of my daughter

Tomasz Pietrzyk, Romeo and Juliet

Artifact, 424 pieces.  Whimsical picture theme and aerial-themed whimsies; bright colors and generally a fun experience.  3/5

love the dragon!

Tea at Five

Victory, 800 pieces.  A nice large Victory, with muted colors and one replaced piece. The shape of the replacement is not great (not that I could do better!) but the coloring is actually pretty good from an ordinary distance.  3/5

replaced piece under the wrist of the lady in pink on the right

Lovely post on puzzling as a metaphor for life's challenges

My co-author's wife has written about puzzles (kindly mentioning me) and her journey with lung cancer.

Ocean's Orcastra

Stave, 90 pieces. A very difficult teaser puzzle with a lovely frame that was itself quite difficult to assemble because of the patterns going every which way.  7/10

Warm Feelings

Lucretia's Pieces, 960 pieces.  Stave-worthy construction here. The quilt picture features repeating elements that make assembling the squares challenging, and then the remaining stripes between the squares required time and patience.  8/10 wonderful

Join the Circus

Stave, 50 pieces. This is advertised as a "Touzzle"--a teaser without a frame, as most have (the starfish and the peacock don't, and I think they're amazing, but they aren't identified on the site as being in this category for whatever reason).  So you have to figure out how the pieces fit without guidance from the frame.  I loved it.  I used the image a bit, as it turned out that the center pieces shared a theme; it would have been even harder without that.  9/10 amazing.

Ornaments

CrowPrints, 276 pieces.  I wanted to see how this cutter would do dropouts, since the others I have are rectangular--I liked the shaping of this, as well as the deep colors.  More difficult than it looks! 3/5

Seattle, Washington

Unknown cutter, 150 pieces.  A nice little puzzle with a squarish, amoebaish piece style (Google decided to turn the pictures upside down though).  3/5

Fire

Stave, 255 pieces. From 1987.  Also has some "NC-17" figures interacting sexually. This wasn't as difficult as the Halloween-themed puzzle of the same style, but it was of course a Stave, so there were plenty of challenges.  Somehow the cut keeps you guessing until the end, even with clear color transitions.  6/10

puzzle 69

Copping a feel