As it happened (from my Journal archives)

November 29, 2002

7:45 pm - Completed #358, The Three Musicians, by Picasso. This is the largest Swirl Curl puzzle, in terms of size (about 20 3/8 by 18 1/2), I've made, and the second highest number of pieces for a Swirl Curl, about 500. I put considerable effort into puzzle piece size consistency and I'm happy with the way the puzzle turned out - an impressive puzzle, in my opinion! I won't be assembling this puzzle from scratch, but I think with the way the colors are distributed, this would be a fun, challenging puzzle to put together. I didn't do any color line cutting (well "maybe" one piece slipped in), per customer request as some children will be helping to assemble this puzzle.

In one of the sections of the puzzle, I wasn't very happy with the way the gluing took hold, and this will require very careful inspection of the pieces before shipment (plus a new step during "manufacturing"). The puzzle includes 10 figurals and three eggs.

9:00 am - I really did keep the computer off all day yesterday, been "years" since I've done that, excluding times I've been away.

I made substantial progress on the Picasso yesterday and will finish it today. Squares and Triangles with Gray will be delayed until early next week, thus it will be the December puzzle, will formally update the announcement later. Backlog unchanged.

November 27, 2002

9:47 pm - Started cutting Picasso's The Three Musicians today. A good part of the afternoon was spent completing a reorganization of my puzzle shop, so I only did about 80 pieces, the cutting is going well. I think 500 piece puzzles with biggish pieces are cool! This puzzle will be about 20 1/2 by 18 1/2 with 500 pieces, including 10 figurals.

Tomorrow I'm not going to turn on my computer! Will be offline all day, next journal post on Friday. I may do some cutting tomorrow, perhaps considerable cutting. I'm into the Picasso puzzle and have decided I won't start Squares and Triangles with Gray until I'm done with the Picasso, don't want to deal with learning about Mahogany now, so the auction will very likely start in the first days December.