Well, the first thing that happened is that we both came down with colds. But in the last few days we have both been feeling better and we have a couple projects we have been working on. You may all not know it, but one of Cheryl's secret loves and guilty pleasures is working custom-made wooden jigsaw puzzles. Not the nice puzzles you get for $20 down at the Hallmark store. These are handcut, wooden puzzles with custom pieces and special tricks.
She first started collecting these about 20 years ago when she discovered Stave Puzzles (www.stavepuzzles.com) and while she does not get a new puzzle every year she would like to! Her most recent puzzle required a 2 1/2 year waiting list before she came to the front of the line. It 'only' took a week to cut and she just received it last week. This puzzle was made by Custom Puzzle Craft, aka Mr. John Stokes III. If you want to see more on how John creates these, check out his website, www.custompuzzlecraft.com and scroll down and click on his Journal.
Here are some photos of his amazing work, cut with a jigsaw blade about the size of a human hair:
The Puzzle in the box as I received it, all 650 teensy weensy pieces.
The puzzle on my working table, with the first section put together. I asked John to cut this puzzle into six sections following a set of cutting 'rules' he developed called a Golden Ratio Compulsory. Then he cut each section using a unique cutting style. This section was the Angular style section. The cutting lines don't show up very well here, but I have a better photo to add later.
This section (below) is cut in the Long Round style. It is the largest section in the puzzle. The edges of this section show you what the Compulsory cutting looked like when John did the initial six-pieces of the puzzle. If you look at the swirls in the reddish section on the bottom left below, (they sort of resemble the tail of a cat, or the hind leg of an animal) can you see where those pieces fit into the reddish section the green bush on the right in the section above?
You can see two sections here, the Knob style pieces on the left and a bit of the Earlet section on the right. See how the round circle end of the Earlet section will fit into the round hole of the Knob section?
This is a shot of the full Earlet style section
I will have to add some shots of individual pieces and something for scale in my next post. The Creative Style pieces are just amazing swirls and wiggles and angles. Each piece is a work of art in itself. And yes, I will show you the completed puzzle shortly. And then, do stay tuned for Tom's Big Project, which is nearing completion.
HAPPY 12/12/12 Everyone!
