As it happened (from my Journal archives)

November 4, 2004

6:33 pm - I started work on the "NY" puzzle, putting in about 5 hours of work. I designed two new figurals, and a wavy border. Figural information will be withheld until the puzzle has been assembled by the customer or the person to whom the customer plans to give the puzzle. I then cut the wavy border and did the very difficult initial cutting taking several hours to do this hardest part of the puzzle cutting. I actually did cut a single piece, lol, during the process. I'm happy to say that the lithograph's paper is excellent for puzzle cutting. The puzzle will be about 22 1/4" x 18".

Tomorrow I'm ready to resume cutting early in the morning; I'd like to cut 1/3 of #564 during each of the next three days, completing the puzzle on Sunday and shipping on Monday.

November 5, 2004

10:55 pm - Spent almost nine hours at Mixed Media, mostly working on the "NY" puzzle. I wanted to get at least 1/3 done, but I'm about 20 pieces short of that goal. Cutting going well, but the pace is very slow as usual with this style puzzle. Tomorrow I'll continue cutting with the goal to reach the 2/3 mark. My shoulder, which was acting up a lot last week is now much better, I think today was the best day I've had since surgery.

November 6, 2004

7:38 pm - Basically a repeat of yesterday. Spent most of the day at Mixed Media working on the "NY" puzzle; had several visitors the for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) event, other interruptions slowed down an already slow pace. I did about 120 more pieces in about six hours of work, now a bit more than 1/2 done; will take two more days of cutting to complete the puzzle, so everything is pushed back a day. I'll continue to work each day until #564, #565 and "Pieces #5" are completed and shipped before taking a break.

November 7, 2004

4:25 pm - Cutting of the "NY" puzzle continuing with five / six more hours of cutting today, with another 120 or so pieces completed. I have about the same number of pieces to do tomorrow and then the cutting will be done. Cutting continues to go well, the puzzle is already pretty impressive looking. I'll also prepare the boards for #565 and "Pieces #5" tomorrow and then cut them on Tuesday. I now plan to inspect / pack / ship #564 on Wednesday along with the other two items, then take Thursday and Friday off.

November 8, 2004

6:35 pm - The "NY" puzzle is done, with another six hours or so of cutting today. I figure I must have spend 30 hours total working on this puzzle over five days, not including another in eight hours or so traveling to / from shop and all of the other non-cutting activity involved. My Creative style pricing is still too low, particularly as it was discounted in this case by 15% for a 1000 Piece Club member, but I'm going to leave it unchanged for now. The puzzle is super excellent, will go great in any major collection.

I'm way behind in emails; I'll address them late tonight or early tomorrow. Have dance class tonight, the fourth of five weekly "East Coast and West Coast Swing" classes, gotta leave now, starts at 7pm.

Tomorrow I'll take lots of pictures of the "NY" puzzle; print and mount the image for #565 and then cut the "Pieces #5" set of pieces. I've moved up the "Pieces #5" job ahead of #565 as I'm ready to go with that tomorrow morning. I'll complete #565 in time for shipment Wednesday afternoon. I will take Thursday and Friday off.

November 10, 2004

6:25 pm - This morning I took a bunch of pictures of #564, the "NY" puzzle, but alas when I wanted to look at them this afternoon, the camera's digital card was blank. Fortunately I had not disassembled the puzzle. I reformatted the card and it now works. I'll take a new set of photos tomorrow morning. This morning's photos were taken outdoors under an overcast sky, ideal lighting conditions; hopefully tomorrow morning will be similar. I did take one photo this afternoon for this journal: I am going to reveal a bit more about the puzzle now as I want to show off some of the super elaborate Creative cutting. The puzzle is a painting of a landscape, and here is a small detailed portion of the bottom of the painting:

November 15, 2004

5:40 pm - I received a nice note from the "NY" puzzle customer. The puzzle is 2/3 assembled and described as "truly a GREAT puzzle" :-). I've been given the go-ahead to post the picture.

The bottom center of this photo, in particular, has some neat cutting, illusions of tubes going through other pieces. I went overboard with the number of fancy pieces in a regular puzzle. I plan to take a lot of detailed pictures as I want to document some of the things going on here in an annotated document (webpage) for future reference. There are some dance influences beginning to happen in my puzzles, several instances in this picture, a subject for the documentation effort. Three eggs made an appearance, including a pretty big one, none shown here, plus a few figurals. As usual, I pushed the limits of the saw, paper and wood, this puzzle will have to be carefully packaged.