Any puzzlers out there?

[cilla4progress]

My daughter gave me a 1000 PIECE puzzle, about 2x2.5 ft.

I'm a complete novice! I think she thinks it will keep me out of trouble! 😇

Need some strategy ideas. Edges are done - with her help.

Whew!

[Siwsan]

1. I do my jigsaw puzzles on line and always do the edges first

I'm sure Sophie Stinky Toes would GLADLY volunteer to help me sort the pieces of an actual, in person puzzle but I am skeptical of her motives.

Anyway, after I get as much of the edges done, I sort pieces into groups like sky, grass, building, and then start filling in from there.

[Chipper Chat]

2. Patience

[cilla4progress]

3. Should be a really good lesson for me,

then!

[CrispyQ]

4. If you have a cat, do not let the cat near the puzzle

or you will NEVER have a complete puzzle. Truly.

[Clearly fogged in]

5. We colorblind puzzlers do it by shape

This includes orientation of the M/F tabs, proportional spacing of the tabs, the angle/slope of the corners, and of course how dark or light the adjoining piece is. Any questions?

[cilla4progress]

6. Wow!

Impressive!

Don't you agree 1000 pcs. is a bit much for a novice?!

😅

[Clearly fogged in]

7. Absolutely

It's a difficult scenario - one with a large and unused table to put it together on only has that much space because they aren't in the habit of filling up those spaces. I suppose you'll be fine if you are somewhere between being a hoarder and a minimalist.

[Phentex]

11. we call them male, female, dog leg, puffer foot, wrench end, etc...

we just finished one and we sorted the last hundred pieces or so by shape because the pattern was pretty difficult! But we don't like them too easy either.

[Clearly fogged in]

13. Ah - that's clever

I am positively stealing those terms - directly from your post into the notepad!

[cilla4progress]

14. Nice!

I had a lot of spade-y looking outie pieces, but couldn't find innies!

[lark]

8. She started you off in the big leagues.

We usually do 500 piece puzzles because 1000 pieces puzzles are too hard to see without glasses.

So, after the edges, we look to see anything that stands out and work on that or start at an edge where there is a distinct pattern and work out from there. We just started doing puzzles this year since going out isn't safe. We're not naturals, but have found we enjoy this activity and it's something we can share.

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. we love puzzles. I love crosswords and Ken ken and the various ones

in the Sunday NYT mag even more. I solved my first Acrostic last week (those throw me). Worst on the diagramless and puns and anagrams

[diddlysquat]

10. When you organize the pieces

lay them out on aluminum cookie sheets with edges. That way they won't take-up so much room. You can stack the aluminum sheets when not in use.

[Nay]

12. I finish the edges forst, and then separate pieces into sections of the same color. Then

I start putting each section/color together. 1000 pieces, though -- I don't like them much! They take too long.

[cilla4progress]

15. Excellent tips -

Thanks!

We had put pieces by color into bowls, due to limited space. Clearly that was not a good plan! So we moved it to the dining room table. Much better!