I picked this puzzle to do next because it’s on someone else’s wishlist in a puzzle swapping site I belong to. I thought hey, I’ll finish this one and maybe can do a trade! Except I enjoyed it so much that now I want to keep it. The non-glare linen texture is so lovely, the patterns are just enough of a challenge, the piece shapes wonderfully varied. I like that all the quilt patterns are named in the picture, but also the material patterns themselves are interesting. One has ducks, another has black cats and pumpkins, others are full of flowers or just plain abstract. It was a very fun, relaxing and meditative puzzle to work on.
One piece was missing, which I patched in. My color match is a tad too light, and there was no way I could duplicate the intricate detail of tiny flowers and vines, but I got a close enough approximation that you can’t tell from a glance.
I didn’t mind that the puzzle had one missing piece as I knew it beforehand, but something else bothered me. The puzzle was littered with animal hair and fine debris- tiny dark and white specks (crumbs?) I’ve seen other puzzlers complain online about receving used jigsaws with pet hair and crumbs how gross that is, and shrugged: hey, just brush it off, blow it away, no big deal. But now I know what they mean. It’s not a big deal to find just a few cat hairs and brush them away. This was something else! After dumping all the pieces out, there were still hairs clinging inside the empty box. After sorting the edges out from the rest of the pieces, I felt I had to wipe my table surface off. Through the entire assembly of the puzzle- down to the very last few pieces- I was continually blowing away or brushing off debris. It just got tiresome.
And I remember who I got this puzzle from. A lady who lives in a town near me, who buys her puzzles brand new and then resells them after one use, on CraigsList. It’s a bit of a drive but getting new-condition puzzles for a good price was worth it to me- at first. I’ve gone twice. I didn’t mind before, that a few of the puzzles had a piece missing- she’d told me they might. I didn’t even mind that one had a piece obviously chewed on by a small dog- I pressed the mangled piece flat again with my iron. But this was just a bit too much. Personally I think if you plan on reselling your puzzles you should take better care of them for the next person. I don’t think I’ll go back again.
All that said, this one was so pretty I kept it assembled on a spare board for several days while I worked the next one, because I liked looking at it so much!
Finished size 18.5 x 26″.
