Puzzle Adventures - Part 2

Continuing this years puzzle adventure images...

A puzzle I was given back in 2004 -a quick one to do, even if pieces fitting in more than one spot make it a bit more complicated than it surely needs to be!

And another Van Haasteren- The Prison Escape- by Jumbo. This time I tackled and enjoyed! a1000 piece one. 'Son' helped me find who goes where. He enjoys doing that and it is always fun to puzzle with a friend!

And of course a couple of details!

Canoe Lake - Cobble Hill- another quick fix build. Lovely scene and a local trade. I expect I'll do this one a few times before it goes back into the 'trading pot'!

Some time last year I decided to try the Dollar Store puzzles to see what the quality is like. My idea was to take it with me when travelling...well that did not happen this year...so I figured I'd see what it is like anyway.

The quality was better than I expected,but not what I would call 'good', however I think it is feasible for a travelling diversion. No problem if a piece gets lost, no hassle if there is no room in the suitcase to bring it back.  KWIM?

Now here is a novel one for me. I have never seen one like it, so that I had to give it a try when it came up for sale locally at a couple of bucks.It was ok, but not a particular favourite of mine. The quality of the pieces was also not the best...

Some of the pieces can be removed to reveal a 'lace edge' No point in trying to do the border on this one first. Best to just jump right in!

Teapots - Cobble Hill - another great build and excellent quality as always. This one was marked on the box as having a piece missing, but I was very happy indeed to find that it was complete after all! YAY!

And finally for this installment - a quick underwater excursion. A puzzle that looks old and possibly drab, but delivers a nice puzzling time and a lovely colourful image. I traded this one for one of mine that was also missing a piece!

This one has some really quirky pieces and many bits simply slide together, they do not interlock. A bit annoying, but doing it on the foam core board meant that I could easily slide bits into place. Good thing it -only just!- fitted the board.

And that is it for Part 2...looks like I will be doing a Part 3 before June is upon us. Until then...happy puzzling!

Puzzle Adventures

I referred in an earlier post for this year 'World Puzzle Days' to a jigsaw puzzle event I took part in at the beginning of the year. I learned about this event through a Facebook group called 'Puzzling Together'
'Puzzling Together' is a huge group of jigsaw puzzle makers and run several different 'events' every month. I thought it could be an interesting way to choose puzzles to do (otherwise I'm faced with wanting to do them all at the same time!) while at the same time getting the opportunity to see other puzzles, from around the world, that would have the same topic, theme, brand etc.
Starting in June 2020 we will be doing another alphabet challenge event. For 2 weeks at a time we will be doing puzzles that in some way meet the criteria set by moderators for that letter. We'll cover 2 letters per month.
So far I have puzzles lined up for this year's letters, and have not yet had to borrow one locally from a willing neighbour to help me out, but I expect that will happen at some point in time!

In the meantime though...between World Puzzle Days and June, I've participated in several 'events', plus I've simply puzzled because I have a puzzle and want to do it...like the Scherenschnitt one, Ruby Geranium (this one fitted the 'colour name in the title' event criteria btw) and The Four Seasons - (that happened to fit the 'large piece count' piece event)

Starting in June I will be catching up on monthly jigsaw puzzling here on the blog at the end of the month with the letters of the alphabet completed during the month, as well as other puzzles I may have completed as I also 'play' along with a group that has a monthly puzzle theme.

But for this post, I  just recap other puzzles completed -

A beautiful Ravensburger that I traded locally - destined for an older friend who I know will enjoy doing this one!

A rather tricky one by Gallison - Window Seat. Reminded me of stained glass windows. This one was a Christmas gift...it was really pretty completed.

And then my first -really!- Van Haasteren by Jumbo - a quickie, but enjoyable!

Some many details...it just cracks me up!

and a great way to sign and date his work!

A quick and very satisfying build - Sewing Notions by Cobble Hill

And a shaped 'Woodland Chickadees' by Bits & Pieces - reminds me of our neck of the woods...
this one was a tad too big for the regular foam core boards that I use, so I had to dig out the big made-for-me-by-hubby puzzle board.

Just a nice sweet illustration with lovely little details

And that would be enough pictures for this post...the next installment is coming soon!
Stay tuned...

Exploring The Neighbourhood

Yes, I do still scrapbook...only right now I'm working with pictures of people who would rather not feature on this blog, therefore I don't often have the opportunity to post the LO pages here.
This was an exception, as I could show the surroundings, while leaving the people to feature on the companion page.

I used Cathy Krenek's 'Nature Walk Bundle' for my page

Nature Walk Bundle

The kit alone as well as separate add-on packs are available in Cathy's Store

Take a look at Cathy's blog for news and freebies... including some borders I submitted for the purpose! Enjoy!

Knitting Socks

Time to finally knit up the yarn (wool) I dyed last year. Only took a year to get to this stage...LOL
This is what it looked like after the first session...then I decided I wanted more blue and definitely darker, so I dyed it again. I used food colouring and basically used all the blue I had and was much happier with the result.

I used Sock-Ease by Lion Brand. Colour way 'Marshmallow' which is near white.

Doing my version of TAAT (TwoAtATime)- two sets of needles, two balls of yarn. Works for me...

Also I divided the fresh skein of yarn into two, by weighing it, and then dyed the yarn side by side by dipping the strings together. So although the 2 balls are similar, they are not the same and that is exactly what I was going for. It is interesting to see how it is striping and how different it looks.

After about 1.5" of k2p2 ribbing I did about 3.5" of double moss stitch. I wanted a texture, without a pattern and I am very happy with the way it is looking.

Turning the heels

I like the look of the gusset and the reinforced heel area. It also makes a bit of a cushion under the heel.

Unfortunately my camera panics at the sight of all this blue...

I am very pleased with how these turned out and how the fit so well. I think I'll keep to the same formula for the next pair, maybe just changing up the pattern stitch area.

This last picture is also pretty close to accurate on the colour.

I knitted along with Jana from Purl Together, following her on YouTube.

Puzzle Challenge - Scherenschnitt

I was so excited when I pulled this one out of the gift packaging it was carefully wrapped in. It had travelled far, was a complete surprise and so much appreciated.

Then I got to looking at it closely and thought ' Oh my!' I knew this would not be the easiest of jigsaws to assemble. And I was right, BUT I did underestimate how much I would enjoy doing this!
Which is of course a very pleasant discovery and I'm glad to say this is going into the collection to stay. It's a keeper for sure.

I did get help from my son who loves to find out 'where does this one go?'

He doesn't usually join me doing puzzles, but he cannot resist helping out with a request like that! I made ample use of his assistance with this one.

Towards the end I was faced with a pile of pieces with squiggly lines going nowhere in particular, at which point I decided to sort the pieces by shapes and that helped me to wrap it up much quicker than expected.

All done and very satisfying.

I particularly liked these musicians

These critters....

...and of course these chickens!

I found the puzzle quality to be good, the box is sturdy and the pieces smooth with a matt finish.

Thank you again my Friend...you know who you are...

Puzzling - The Four Seasons

Just before Christmas I was hunting for a gift for a family member, when I, very fortunately, came across this beautiful puzzle :  The Four Seasons, by Cobble Hill.  I had put it on my wish list for the future and was so thrilled to find it in a local store, and at a special price to boot. Bought myself a Christmas treat there and then!

I did sort out the edge pieces first, but soon realized there are too few that show details from the image itself and too little difference between the shades of pale tan. It seemed unnecessarily complicated to insist on completing it first.

Instead I launched straight into starting with items I could identify the pieces of. That was easier said than done too, as there's a lot of red and loads of green. Because I don't sort pieces, but dig through the box, it made getting going with this 2000 piece puzzle a lot slower. However I loved the look of the pieces! They look like little gems! So digging through them and looking closely at each one was rather a pleasure!

Of course I started with things I particularly like. Like snowmen, crabs and Christmas goodies, followed closely by flowers....and that covers almost everything in this image!

Coming along nicely now...

And all done! Absolutely love this image!

And some close-ups - This bowl of lovely Christmassy goodies

The beautiful colours of this crab, that to me yells 'summer'!

And of course the snowman. This one has birds too. Doubling the cute factor for me!

I enjoyed this puzzle from start to finish. As always the Cobble Hill quality is outstanding. The linen finish of the pieces feel so luxurious. The colours are deep, saturated, rich.
The box is beautiful and sturdy and they stack in a way that you can always easily spot a particular puzzle regardless of how the boxes are stacked. Each puzzle is identified by a clear image, full or partial, on the each side of the box.

I already look forward to doing this one again. It was such a pleasure and the final result so beautiful!
Thank you Cobble Hill for another first class puzzling experience!