Puzzles are Fun!

What better way to spend one of these cloudy / rainy pre-Spring days than putting together a jigsaw puzzle? Puzzles are fun to do, by yourself or with others. It’s a challenge to figure out which piece goes where but is also relaxing at the same time. Puzzles have had a recent resurgence in popularity during the pandemic, when people were staying at home and needed a different form of entertainment.

“John Spilsbury is believed to have produced the first jigsaw puzzle around 1760, using a marquetry saw.

Early puzzles, known as dissections, were produced by mounting maps on sheets of hardwood and cutting along national boundaries, creating a puzzle useful for teaching geography.

Cardboard jigsaw puzzles appeared in the late 1800s, but were slow to replace wooden ones because manufacturers felt that cardboard puzzles would be perceived as low-quality, and because profit margins on wooden jigsaws were larger.

The name “jigsaw” came to be associated with the puzzle around 1880 when fretsaws became the tool of choice for cutting the shapes. Since fretsaws are distinct from jigsaws, the name appears to be a misnomer.” (1)

Puzzles now come in all shapes and the number of pieces vary widely. Arbutus Crafts has puzzles from 100-piece mini versions to 1000-piece challenges. The subject varies, but a lot are bird related. We also have 500-piece round puzzles showcasing Indigenous Art.

Source: (1) Wikipedia

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