Sisters of the Sun Puzzle 
by Guest Writer Roberta Shore

We invite you to read Roberta Shore's review on the following jigsaw puzzle. Since she has discovered the advantages of jigsaw puzzling, she has reviewed/journaled several that will be available on this website. 

Sisters of the Sun Amazon link

Sisters of the Sun Puzzle - Roberta's Review

Sisters of the Sun Sunsout Random Cut 1000 Pieces Finished Dimensions: 30” x 19”
Roberta-Profile
Sisters of the Sun Sunsout Random Cut 1000 Pieces Finished Dimensions: 30” x 19”

Sisters of the Sun

Sunsout
Random Cut
1000 Pieces
Finished Dimensions: 30” x 19”

My (Advancing) Newbie Difficulty Rating: Advanced

I know art is subjective, but I think this painting is stunning, beautiful, gorgeous! If you agree, and want to puzzle it, let me tell you what it took to piece it together. Time and patience, for sure! Here’s the specifics...

Quality - oh dear, another puzzle with loose piece fit. I suppose it might come second to missing pieces, but it continues through every aspect of the puzzling process. For this puzzle, there were few opportunities to piece large sections together and pick them up. Yes, I had to deal with things coming apart less frequently, but it is still annoying. But wait, there’s more. The oversized box arrived shrink wrapped. Inside there was no poster, just the sealed plastic bag. It was not ripped in any way, but there, alone aside from some puzzle dust, lay an orphan puzzle piece.

No, no, no! I had hopes of framing this puzzle, which is really not my thing. The only other puzzle I deemed worthy had such a tight fit I framed it without tape or glue. It could become a puzzle again. So, not only did I know from the start I would have to tape this “only once a puzzle” together, I had to construct the whole thing wondering about missing pieces. I threw the little orphan in with it’s siblings and got to work — er, fun.

Yes again - as challenging as I knew this puzzle would be, I knew it would be fun. I truly enjoy piecing together large areas of similar color over busy, chaotic illustrations. There always has to be an illustration, or at least a gradient — I have zero desire to do a totally single color puzzle.

Construction: Of course, find the edge pieces and sort by color — simple enough, six or seven basic colors. I built the frame and learned about the loose piece fit, realizing that, I pulled out a foam core board to build the puzzle on my table — good thing I only had to move the frame (uh huh - a few short sections at a time - aarrgghh!!) Sub sorting — I sorted out the 3 background tones, the light, medium and dark tones and the circle pieces of the middle dress, the flowers, the vase, the baby, the striped scarf, the skin tones and the jewelry.

I built the puzzle from the top down. Such a simple sentence for such a big job! Nothing about this was easy. Turns out the orphan piece was an edge piece that did not fit in the frame, not a duplicate; and on closer look, not even from this puzzle. A good thing? It was still hard not to think about missing pieces. Having almost completed the top third of the puzzle, I could not find the piece to finish the bracelet on the left arm of lady three. I went through the trays again and again, I crawled all over the floor, I was sure it was missing. I had already put many hours into what was only going to get more difficult — what a shame! (When I’m sub sorting and find a couple pieces that fit together. I put them aside. The “missing” piece was part of one of those - crisis averted!) Through the rest of the build I refused to panic when confronted with not finding what I was looking for, — “go on to another area”, I told myself. That is something I should remember to do much more often anyway.

Next I filled in the rest of the background, then it was on to the lonnnng skirts. There is no way I could have accomplished them without sorting by color tones and piece shape. This is a random cut puzzle, but most of the pieces had typical ins and outs of more standard pieces. I found the light pieces on the edge of the middle dress that created a border between all three. From there I worked each skirt separately from the borders to the center. That was the only possible way to do the angled striped one. I remained patient while I hunted down those skirt designs - piece, by piece, by piece. Thank goodness none were missing!

Time: Yes, it took many hours over several days, but it never stopped being fun. The pieces have a shine which made piecing in room light more difficult. That’s fine — seems I’m better at the process earlier in the day anyway! But I do not puzzle by the clock, I take a lot of breaks, I’m still slow, and I still reference the picture (the box pic was true to the puzzle colors). Into nine months of this hobby now. If time is a measure, I’m definitely still a Newbie, but a novice with confidence at this point. My stash has several puzzles that meet my puzzling aesthetic, several purchased before I knew exactly what that was, and a few in the “what was I thinking” category. I will probably do them all, some with less enthusiasm, but still some fun, I hope!

Puzzling is the best activity I have ever done! It’s never too late to try something new - I am 75! If you are reading this because you are exploring the idea, give it a try. If you’ve done this for just a while like me, I imagine you can relate to developing preferences. If you are a seasoned puzzler reading this, I hope it brought back some fond memories.

My ratings: Quality, A-, Fun Factor A+

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