1000 Pieces

 

Ravensburger jigsaw with interesting artwork

 

Back in late November our area experienced a significant wind storm that knocked down many trees in a wide area. Our power was out for three days. Then a day into the outages, cellular towers also lost power. Without electricity, heat, and internet service, we pulled out some of our old jigsaw puzzles to work on by lantern.

It was a great way to spend the evenings bundled in extra layers and making hot cocoa on a camping stove set up on the back porch. We found it so relaxing that we’ve continued working on puzzles. Rather than buying new jigsaw puzzles, I looked for local places to trade but found none in our area. We checked Goodwill and hit the jackpot with hundreds of puzzles at very affordable prices.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jigsawpuzzles/comments/1chnnnn/pieces_names/

We found that 500 piece puzzles were too easy with both my husband and I working on them and have settled on 1000 pieces as the standard we purchase. Many of the puzzles had strange shapes like lightning bolts. I wondered whether the different pieces had names other than something like “two outies, two innies” as I called them.

It turns out there aren’t any universally agreed upon names, but there is

An Amy Stewart puzzle

some commonly used terminology like tabs/knobs/outies and blanks/sockets/innies. While researching names for pieces I learned that the world’s leading puzzle maker is Ravensburger, and we happened to find one at Goodwill.

 

The artwork in the Ravensburger puzzle was intricate and entertaining (see top of page). However, my favorite puzzles were the colorful ones. I also learned that January is national puzzle month. For us, the entertainment will likely last until the weather is nice enough for regular outdoor activities.

Amy Stewart artwork