Jigsaw 16, Series 3

A few days ago we embarked on the second jigsaw of the festive season. And if this cold snap persists there may be more: I may have given a lot of our jigsaws to charity shops but I still have a stash of old favourites in the back of a bedroom cupboard.

Started in the afternoon and by close the edge was nearly done and there were a few heaps of distinctive pieces. Went away wondering whether an edge piece was missing, but coming back the following morning and looking at the heap from a different angle, in a different light, there it was.

The pieces were not as big and fat as those of the first jigsaw and the puzzle was taken from photographs, which taken together meant that it was much more likely that one would make mistakes and there was a certain amount of unpicking in the course of solving this puzzle.

But, this second puzzle was broken into four sectors in much the same way as the first puzzle, with distinctive boundaries and with the different sectors having different colour mixtures, different palettes if you like. All of which made things much easier than they might otherwise be.

So by the middle of the following day the cross was complete. Started in on the bottom right sector in the afternoon, starting with the dotted tablecloth and moving onto the cakes, both of which were quite easy to pull out of the heap. This sector was complete by the close of the second day and two other sectors had been started.

Slightly slowed down by some of the colours of the pieces not seeming to match to colours of the picture on the box, with the quality of light also making a difference. But one got the hang of this after a while.

On the morning of the third day, BH had a good go while she was waiting for me to emerge for breakfast. After which things really speeded up. The knowledge of the puzzle was good and the heap was small. More or less at the point where one could pick a piece at random from the heap and place it in seconds.

And in the event, the puzzle was completed later that day. With an apparently missing piece causing a minor panic, above the ear in the top left hand sector.

But panic subsided when the piece was found on the carpet underneath. Feeling with a hand being more productive than try to pick it out from the carpet pattern by eye.

A pleasing and satisfying activity which kills several birds with one stone. I associate to the way that I found doing a jigsaw of an old master was a good way to learn about the old master, to learn how to look at it, how to get more out of the original, should occasion arise.

Which prompts the thought that it might be time to have another go at the ambassadors of reference 2. But nothing in the aforementioned bedroom cupboard. Surely I would not have given such an important jigsaw away? Was I going to have to have another go at the Foppa of reference 3 instead? 

Situation resolved a few minutes later when I remembered about a secondary stash of some of the more arty jigsaws in the study. Full report in due course.

PS: slightly surprised to find that jigsaw activity peaked for the first time more than a decade ago now. Will there be a second peak this year?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/jigsaw-15-series-3.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=jigsaw+ambassadors+holbein.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=foppa+jigsaw.

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