I finished The World of Birds, a 2000-piece puzzle I found at the thrift store, on January 6th. This is the biggest puzzle I’ve ever done. While it is much bigger than Great Wall of China, it was actually easier to put together. I did have to deal with solid-white pieces, but I also had a birder’s advantage. I am familiar with most of the species on this puzzle and could tell from a beak or a tail what sort of bird I was looking for.
While some people challenge themselves by not looking at the image on the box, I didn’t do that here. I put together all the large and colorful birds without looking, but once I got to the sparrows, vireos, and flycatchers, I got out my magnifying glass and grabbed the box lid. Telling them apart is hard even when you have the whole bird in front of you. I needed help figuring out where the similar bits went.
I put in almost 50 hours over two weeks to put this puzzle together, but it was still way faster than the Impossibles Great Wall of China. That puzzle took 2 minutes 35 seconds per piece, while the bird puzzle only took 1 minute 29 seconds per piece.
So far it’s my cheapest puzzle (only .003 cents per piece) but that’s a combination of buying it used and its large size.
The hardest thing about this puzzle was taking the time to re-sort things. I had to do it multiple times. It’s the kind of task that feels like you are wasting time, but sorting sped things up in the end, especially when I was working just from the shape.
When I got down to the last 400 pieces, I thought I would start looking at the puzzle and then find the piece on my trays but I wound up doing it the other way around. I had a “which way does that go?” group plus some pieces that were sorted incorrectly. So it was faster to pick up a piece and figure out where it went on the puzzle. I stopped looking at the box lid at this point, because it gave me more options for a piece than I actually had. Most of the birds were already completed.
I’ve been admiring this puzzle but need to take it apart so we can have our dining room table back. I’m not sure what I will do with it now that it’s done. Save it to try again some day, so I can see if I beat my own time? Find it a new home so someone else can give it a try? The one thing I won’t be doing is gluing it together and hanging it on the wall. Better to let it continue to be a puzzle, so someday it can be solved again.
What’s the biggest puzzle you’ve ever solved?
That would be a really fun puzzle to do. A bit of a challenge too.
I thought so. But I’m discovering that jigsaw puzzles are one of those things that people have differing opinions on.
WOW! Winter time creates time. Amazing work!
I’m finding puzzles a good break from other kinds of thought work. But you’re right. I’ll bet I’m less interested when summer comes.