Another jigsaw makes Heidi yawn:
It’s so boring – nothing to chase, so she’s off:
For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.
Category: Jigsaws
Saturday Snapshot
By this time last year I’d read about twice as many books as I have this year. One reason is the length of books I’ve been reading, but another reason is that I’ve been doing a jigsaw. I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles and once I’ve got started on one I find it simply addictive – and I’m often surprised at the length of time it can take me.
Just as I have a backlog of books waiting to be read, I have a backlog of jigsaws and I bought this one, Northumberland Castles when we first moved to the county three years ago. I put it to one side at the time, busy settling in the house and promptly forgot about it, until recently. I finished it last weekend:
This puzzle shows from top left, looking at the photo, Dunstanburgh Castle (which we have yet to visit), Bamburgh Castle (see this post), second row from the left, Alnwick Castle (see this post), Lindisfarne (one of my favourite little castles – see this post), then Warkworth Castle (we have visited but I’ve not written a post yet) bottom row again from the left Chillingworth Castle (not visited this one), and Norham Castle, right on the Scottish Border (see this post).
I use a PuzzleKaddy to do the jigsaw. It folds away keeping the pieces held together and has a carrying handle. When I’m not doing the puzzle I fold up the board and slide it under the sofa out of the way.
I also use a Jigsafe to hold the pieces. This is a series of nesting boxes. I think the idea is to sort the pieces by colour. Each tray has a separate cardboard base so that you can do small sections and then slide them complete onto the jigsaw board. I don’t actually do that very much but use the trays just to hold the pieces, as shown in the photo below where I’ve sorted the pieces for the next jigsaw I’m doing. I separated the side pieces into the smallest box and just put the rest in the boxes as they came to my hand. Heidi was very interested!
For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.
U is for …
… Unfinished …
My first entry for ABC Wednesday was J and I chose Jigsaw. I’d just got the pieces out ready to do it:
It’s a beautiful picture of Little Langdale in the Lake District. It’s also a very difficult puzzle partly because so many of the pieces are so similar in colour. Often a puzzle like this has to be done by matching the shapes of the pieces but what is so frustrating in this puzzle is that so many of them will fit together but they aren’t quite right and I end up with pieces that just won’t fit anywhere. The grass was bad enough and I know I’ve not got the pieces all in the right places because I have one green piece left and it won’t fit into the one remaining space. The sky is even worse.
It is UNFINISHED.
Also UNFINISHED is another U – namely Ulysses by James Joyce. Back in January I was full of determination to read this book, but so far I’ve only managed a few pages. It will certainly remain unfinished this year – maybe next year will be my Ulysses year, maybe not. It’s a daunting book because of its sheer length and reputation as a difficult book. It would probably help if I read it alongside Declan Kiberd’s book Ulysses and Us. I love the cover of this book, showing Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses.
More variations on the letter U can be found on the ABC Wednesday site
ABC Wednesday
Last week I found the ABC Wednesday meme, which was started by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt, and people from all over the world come together to play and share their entries. Each week word(s) beginning with the designated letter are selected and illustrated through a photo, poem or prose. This week is the letter J.
J is for Jigsaw
As well as reading I also enjoy doing jigsaws and I’ve just started doing this one:
Eventually it will look like this. It’s a view of Little Langdale in the Lake District.
Wordless Wednesday
My Next Bookshelf?
I’d like to have this ‘Bookshelf‘
It’s a jigsaw puzzle from Wentworth Wooden Jigsaws, who make beautiful wooden jigsaws including “whimsy” pieces. Whimsies are specially shaped pieces cut into puzzles “on a whim” by Victorian hand cutters and Wentworth is one of the only companies still producing these unique puzzles. Each piece is a different shape and selected pieces are cut in shapes that may reflect the image. Also the corner pieces aren’t the obvious corner shapes you get in other puzzles and there are straight edged pieces that fit in the middle!
These pieces are from the jigsaw of The Mall, London from a painting by John Sutton. Here is the completed jigsaw.
And here is a close up.
BooksPlease 