We were putting a puzzle together in September and once again I had to explain the system to My Sweetie. See, if he were the sorter he would sort the pieces by color. I sort the pieces by shape. I have my own names for the shapes. That is how my brain works. I name everything and that's how my brain sorts things. When I used to play Mah Jong I had names for all the designs and I even had names for all the protozoa things in Darwin's Dilemma (which I probably spent a total of a month of my life playing in the early 90's). And if you click that link you will easily guess which ones I called eggs and which ones I called potatoes.~
This piece I call the Boy Scout Badge:
(actual Boy Scout Badge)~
Yeah, I know most of you would call that a fleur-de-lis, but to me, it's a Boy Scout badge. This next piece I call the Chinese House. I suppose I could call it a pagoda, but I don't:
This next piece is one of the rarer pieces and I call it the Chinese Star because it reminds me of those Ninja throwing stars:
This is the second of the rare pieces and I call it Four Points:
This is one of the most common pieces and it's name is Jumping Jack. It reminds me of some sort of toy I've seen where you pull a string or something and the arms and legs move up and down except this one only has arms (wings, really). I think I used to call it Two-Headed Man:
This next one, another common one, I simply call Man or Guy:
The Man's "arms" I call Wings and the Man's "feet" I call spades. I left out the frame pieces because they are just frame or edge pieces. Anyway, that's how I put puzzles together. I did once open a puzzle box to find really random shapes that looked like they had been cut out by a drug addict. It took me forever to do that one. I was explaining all of this to my friend Carole and she says she also goes by color, like My Sweetie. Am I the only one that sees puzzle pieces by shape instead of color? Do you name things?
10 comments:
First of all, I love the Peanuts gang puzzle. We need to get one. If it's no more than 500 pieces, please let me know where you got it. We like to have puzzles out on our breakfast bar for family and friends to work on when they're visiting...and at night, before bed, the kids and I will put pieces together.
I think it's interesting that you name the pieces. I'm like your friend and Sweetie...I separate by color. I don't name things, but when I people watch with my friends (especially on South Beach), we like to point out the ones who look like celebrities. One guy (we see all the time) we call George Hamilton because he couldn't be any tanner and he's one of those "ladies men." One time I said, "Look, there's Calvin Klein..." and believe it or not, it actually was Calvin Klein. :)
I never ever thought about separating them by shape. Actually, I thought they were mostly all random shapes, and I only look for a shape when I can't find the colour, or if there is a piece that has a particular sticky-outy bit to it.
Do you two work on these together? Without yelling?
I sort all the corner pieces and edges first and then the rest of the pieces by colour/design and THEN by shape. So I end up with several small piles and several even smaller piles within the small piles/. Then I lay out the corners and add the outer edge and then work my way in starting with the rarest/most easily identifiable colour/design to the most common. I haven't done a puzzle in a long time.
I separate the edges, then by color.
And I DO name things. I give names people that I have not met, meals I invent, and landmarks. Clint does it also, and I'm sometimes amazed that we can even communicate, because our names often have no reflection on what the item, person, or place is. It's our weird...spanglish. Only it's all English.
I just drove to St. Louis last weekend. The final directions, in my mind were "Go over spider bridge, and turn left just past Eggbert drive." (Spider bridge being highway 41, and Eggbert being Mombert Drive. That's my route, though, and don't mix me up by giving me tips; I'll only get lost.
Scarlet,
~~I always call people by celebrity names or even go so far as to say, "Look, Cameron Diaz and Gene Wilder had a child!" The puzzle is a 500 piece and it was in a "collector tin" and he thinks he got it at Barnes & Noble.
VioletSky,
~~Yes we work on them together but we seem to gravitate to different sections. He was all about Snoopy and the word "Smak" and I worked on different areas.
Xup,
~~Yep, that sounds like a good system, excpet I do shape and then push the colors together.
GnightGirl,
~~I've been over Spider Bridge! My second husband was from Carlyle and we drove into St. Louis a few times. I also do the same with food and have something I call "Saturday chicken" because it used to seem like we only had it on Saturdays. So now I might say, "On Thursday, we're having Saturday chicken" and he knows what I mean.
I'm both, actually, a color sorter and a shape sorter. The color sorting part of it kind of bugs me, though, because I always wonder if I were blind, how would I know? By shape, of course...
Then Friday, I went to lunch with a friend and it was a busy, seat-yourself restaurant and I wondered if I were blind, how would I find an empty table to sit at?
Not sure where the blind theme comes from... just the way my mind works.
God forbid you should ever go blind. Tony would have to pick out your outfits!
I will never look at doing a puzzle the same way again!!
Also, I used your wise words this weekend...righty tighty, lefty Lucie. Simple words that I'll use from now on!
Carole,
~~LOL! It's "lefty LOOSIE" as in it loosens the screw.
I'm not big on jigsaw puzzles, for some reason they bore me to tears. But every time I have done one, I've sorted by colour. It never even occurred to me that there is more than one shape...
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