Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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yogi
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Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

Post by yogi »

I never thought about it, but, apparently the people who make jig saw puzzles use the same die to cut the pieces for many puzzles. That means the pieces of one puzzle will fit into the exact location on some other puzzles. If you are really really clever, you can combine two puzzles to produce a third that is likely to be bizarre, To wit:
This is CLICK BAIT, but still worth the look: https://themindcircle.com/jigsaw-puzzle ... -patterns/
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Kellemora
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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I'm always working jigsaw puzzles. Usually for about one hour during or after dinner while the frau watches a TV show. Then I come back to my office. She posts on-line every one I finished. I've had some really hard ones too.

Yes, once they spend the money to make a die of a certain size, it is used for almost all puzzles of that size.
With laser etching machine, the puzzles are much more complicated than the Milton Bradley days, hi hi.
I've had some with really unique cuts too and some interesting shapes.
But the puzzles of today are harder to put together since they cuts overlap each other now.
You just can't look at a gap and guess what shape fits it anymore.
Then too, there are some that every third or fourth row was an identical cut so the pieces could be mixed on the same puzzle and fit perfectly. I really hate those kind!
My puzzle of choice is 1000 piece puzzles. They are much more challenging than 350 or 500 piece puzzles of the same size.
The hardest puzzle I ever did was the Rosetta Stone. I've had a lot of super hard ones, some took months to complete, but never one quite as hard as the Rosetta Stone that took close to a year to figure out. Well, maybe not that long, but it seemed like it.
I'm working on a puzzle right now that has 20 hidden objects in it. Didn't know what that meant at first. But once I got into the puzzle I found out real quick. I had put together four pieces that were obviously a yellow duck, but no yellow duck like it appeared on the picture of the puzzle. Took me a while to figure out where it fit in. But once I did, the light bulb came on and I figured out why I could not find certain pieces I was looking for.
There was a maroon banner that ended in a point like the bottom of a V and very prominent in the picture of the puzzle. I never could find that piece with the maroon point on it. I was working in another area of the puzzle and assembled a few pieces that I thought fit that area, but didn't. Don't know why exactly, but I though to try it where the maroon point should go and it fit perfectly, and with everything around it too. It was another of those hidden images placed over the bottom of the maroon banner.
A month ago I finished a puzzle of books on bookcases. It uses the same books over several times, at least four times on the puzzle, so just because you got a book put together, it doesn't mean it fits where you were looking for that same book, hi hi. I decoupaged it and hung it in my office, which is mostly books and writing decor.

It gives me something to do while sitting with the frau, and I only keep one occasional eye on the TV program she has playing. Sometimes we talk about stuff, but not a whole lot.
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yogi
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

Post by yogi »

I don't think the puzzle combinations in the article were intended. Some creative puzzle mechanics spent a lot of time doing the equivalent of Photo Shopping jigsaw puzzles.

When we were newly weds the wife and I would spend time together doing jigsaw puzzles whenever we weren't doing the obvious things newly weds tend to do. That was a great way to spend time together back then but it didn't take very long for me to become bored. I like the idea of ending up with a completed puzzle as a reward for all that effort, and we might have even framed one or two. If it wasn't for my wife being there to help, my interest in jigsaw puzzles would be very short lived. The variations you describe for constructing a puzzle are interesting. I didn't think there was much you could do to vary the routine other than obfuscate the picture itself. Pieces that can fit into more than one place is a great variation. I can imagine a puzzle with only about a dozen unique shaped pieces ... talk of Rosetta Stones. LOL

I knew you were a fan of jigsaw puzzles and thought you might get a kick out of this article. I normally don't like to cater to the click bait ads I run across, but this was an exception. :grin:
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Kellemora
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

Post by Kellemora »

I did!
Looked like he had a lot of phun mixing and matching to come up with those schemes.
I did notice most of them were only 100 to 200 piece puzzles.
Still, they were cute!

I think puzzles are boring also, but I'm a person who has to be doing something all the time.
I can't just sit and watch the idiot box with the frau for an hour without having something to do.
And let me keep one eye on the TV too. Or talk if she has a question or two.
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yogi
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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While I have been known to multitask successfully, most of the time I need to concentrate on what I'm doing to the exclusion of everything else. When wife and I are eating dinner, that is our time together and I want to focus on her. We might talk about what she has seen on television, but when she gets all involved with what is on TV while we are eating dinner that takes away the focus on her. It's kind of frustrating to me and I do my best to ignore the television. It would be the same if we were doing puzzles again. I'd want to focus on the puzzle and not even have the television going. And, in a perverse kind of way, I do the same thing when I do nothing. LOL I too actually can't just sit and stare out the window so I play some kind of mind numbing game on the PC facing the window. It really bothers me when the neighbor comes out and does something; that takes my attention off the mind numbing game. :lmao1:
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Kellemora
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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I hear ya Yogi! We do spend a lot of time talking. But after being married for 20 years, and neither of us having any real new experiences to talk about, we usually only talk about current events for a few minutes, then she focuses on the TV and I focus on the jigsaw puzzles.

Sorta reminds me of an old joke about the inmates of a prison.
A new prisoner heard the inmates out in the recreation yard calling out numbers, and some would not at one number, and laugh at other numbers.
When he asked the guard about it he said, most of these prisoners are here for life, and rather than tell the same old jokes and stories over and over again, they gave them all numbers. So rather than spend 10 to 15 minutes telling a story, or a few minutes telling a joke, they just rattle off the corresponding number to the joke or story.

I do play adventure/mystery type games on the frau's computer. Usually for about 15 to 20 minutes after I finish my exercise while I'm waiting for my heart to slow back down and my O2 to go back up, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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I seem to recall the punchline to that prison joke story is that the numbers not laughed at were called out by people who simply didn't know how to tell a good joke. Or something ...

I can't say exactly when my wife and I reached the same equilibrium that you and Deb have come to: no news is good news. This September will be anniversary #54 for our marriage. 54 :xclaim: I can hardly believe it. We not only ran out of new stories to tell each other but many years ago, seems like at least 20, gift giving became an option. We both have all we want and it's exceptionally difficult to come up with something unique. Birthdays always get a card and perhaps some sort of trinket gift. More often than not we simply go out to eat at some fancy place and call it a day. Birthday cakes fell off the menu before the gifts did, but there are special occasions when a cake becomes mandatory, such as turning 40, or when I reached 65. Christmas is really a challenge in that it simply seems appropriate to get the spouse something significant. But there have been years when only a card was forthcoming. Then, there are those times when the UPS guy delivers something unexpected for no apparent reason at all. Wife just thought it would be nice for me to have it. At least we are still talking to each other and not simply sending text messages from one room to the next.
Last edited by yogi on 11 Jun 2020, 16:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Kellemora
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Re: Fun With JigSaw Puzzles

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WOW, congratulations on crossing the big 50 a few years back.

I was married to wife #1 for 13 years, #2 for 20 years, and #3 here now for 19 years.
We don't count the half-wife since it was concurrent with #2 (long story but done legally by a judge).
I hope this last one holds up longer, I'm officially twice a widower, even though #1 is still alive.

I sorta hoped for a birthday on my 70th, but we had so much going on that year with medical bills and a couple of Debi's relatives passing away. It was a crazy year all around.

Like you, when I see something the frau really would like to have, I buy it for her as a gift.
She does the same for me too! A lot of times it is out of necessity, like something she uses breaks down.
I bought here a countertop ice maker, a fairly cheap one, because I had to turn off the water to the fridge, because I thought that was where all the water was coming out of it from. It wasn't that. Then within about 3 weeks after I got her the ice maker, the expensive 2600 dollar fridge gave up the ghost at only 6 years old. The new one I bought her doesn't have as many frills as the old one, and still cost around 1300 bucks.

We just live day to day, her in the living room or at work, and me in my office all day, except for eating times, hi hi.
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