Tuesday, January 29, 2013

A Non Quilty Finish!

The 3000 piece Golden Gate Bridge puzzle is done... the last piece clicked into place at 2:02 AM last night! This huge puzzle takes up 2/3's of our dining room table with both leaves inserted. My daughter and I worked on this puzzle together the 1st week of January. She did the skyline, the bridge deck and most of the water while I did the sky and the bridge tops. I posted about the start of it here in Cat Antics Part 2.
When she went back to school, all that was left was a bunch of mostly black pieces which make up the trees along the bottom and the bases of the bridge. Talk about hard! I've plunked in a piece here or there but on Sunday I got the bug to finish it up. I sat down and sorted all the blackish pieces into groups - no knobs, 1 knob, 2 opposite knobs, 2 side by side knobs, 3 knobs and 4 knobs and put each group in one of these boxes.  It was the only way to finish this off.

If you enjoy puzzles you will LOVE these boxes! I bought a set for my Mother-In-Law for Christmas a few years ago and treated myself to one too. When we start a puzzle my daughter & I make a plan for sorting the pieces into separate boxes. On a normal sized puzzle you can get all the pieces face up but on this one we had a few boxes that were 3-4 pieces deep! We had an orange box, a yellow box, a blue box, a black box, a skyline box, a water box and a box with the bridge lights. When we emptied a box we would resort a full box - I had 3 shades of yellow in 3 boxes while working on the sun.
Remember this lovely feature of my quilting room?
My DH's monster Ab machine is gone! On Thursday night I stubbed my toe hard on the leg next to the bed, somehow I caught the edge of my toenail and did a nice partial removal. Major ouch. On Sunday we took it apart, moved it downstairs and brought up a desk for another sewing station. Sometimes it takes a little blood to make a major improvement!

So I've been doing some rearranging and a much needed tidy up in my quilting room in between bouts of puzzle mania. Now I have all day to sew and see if I can wrap up a few more of my January goals.

9 comments:

  1. Now that is a puzzle! We usually do one every year at Christmas but missed it this year. They are a little addictive! Almost like quilting!

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  2. Wow! What a huge challenge for a puzzle! I did one once of the St. Louis skyline at night. All those dark pieces - it took me two weeks :*)

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  3. that is a huge puzzle. my husband like putting them together. Pretty smart way to keep the pieces straight too.
    Ouch! that hurts just thinking about your toe.

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  4. I used to love making puzzles. It's been years since I've done one. Hope your toe is better.

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  5. Congratulations on finishing that enormous puzzle. Sorry to hear about your toe but it did have a good result!

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  6. Boy do I know how that can feel when a person has a major "stub the toe" event. Mine was with the coffee table! Awesome puzzle. Congrats on finishing it in less than a month!
    Beth in MN

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  7. I don't think I've ever made a puzzle that large! We usually put one out at holidays and family events or vacations at the beach. It's a nice place for people to gather and talk as they work on the puzzle. It invites so much more conversation than having the TV on. So sorry about your toe!

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  8. It's a shame you had to injure your toe, but it sounds like it was worth it in the end!!

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  9. I can so relate to stubbing my toe on things. My toe next to the big toe on my left foot has been broken so many times it now tries to sit on top of my big toe. I feel a surgery in my future. ouch!!

    My hubby and I put puzzles together in the winter. We frame some of them and use them as prints on the wall as part of our decor. I will have to do a post on my blog one day and show them off.

    Today is show off day to show what you got accomplished for the January Monthly To-Do List linky party. I gotta scoot and go finish one more thing before I do my post.

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