Color My Heart (3) pt. 2

I've been working on the Ravensburger pencils for a week now, and have made considerable progress.  Well, considerable progress considering that most of the time my attention is either completely consumed or at least divided by the young people with whom I share my evenings.  The last time I made this puzzle I think it took maybe four? evenings of diligent work, but this slower work has been more thoughtful instead of a speed run, if you will.

After the frame was done and first sort complete, the easiest section to start seemed the orange/red corner bit.  I realized the puzzle is upside down from my chair, but it doesn't really matter, ultimately. 

This corner came together extremely quickly, in less than an hour. The colors are all quite distinct here, and makes for a very quick build.

For me, the yellow and green corner was slightly more difficult to build, based on color alone, as the yellow-green pencil is hard for me to differentiate from the yellow.  It wasn't too bad, though, as I dreaded moving forward to the whole half of the puzzle that is in the blue-indigo-purple spectrum which is quite difficult for me to differentiate.  I don't know if I have a slight color blindness, or if this is common; but, there it is.

There is a little corner in my living room where I have my chair, near the heater, and I can tuck my puzzle table back, sort of out of the way, so I don't need to constantly roll up my puzzle and fold up the table. The last two puzzle roll felts I had got puked on by IdaCat, and isn't a fool-proof method for in-progress puzzle storage, especially in an active household like my own.  I'm hoping that my good monster and I can design and build a put-awayable in-progress puzzle solution this spring. 

Eventually I slogged through the blurple half, while enjoying season 2 of The Great British Baking Show, which is so wholesome that it brings calm feelings to my home.  Or, I like to pretend it does.  Because nice people baking.

What worked for me going through this bit was noticing subtle pattern features, since the color was not really working for me.  Faint little white stripes, thicker bold stripes, things like that.

The angle of the pencil was helpful in tricky colors as well, matching the angle of black/dark grey and the pencil color itself.

So, now all that bit is done, with just the pencil wood and grey heart in the middle to go.

The previous time I completed this puzzle, I saved the grey bit in the middle for last.  However, this time I've decided to not save it for last.  I want to savor the piece shape-based building strategy of this area, instead of feeling rushed and frustrated.

I really enjoy shape-based building.  I sort the samey color into groups by shape.

With a Ravensburger, of course, the pieces are square-based.  Each piece is unique, but not very unique in shape variation.

They grey pieces sorted into the following shapes:

A tab on two opposite sides, and then holes on the other sides.  I call these ones regulars, or plains.  They are the most common puzzle shape I have encountered, and the shape that is most commonly represented when there is a need to illustrate jigsaw puzzle.  There were twice as many of this shape than any other shape.

Three sides with holes with a tab on the fourth side, I call dancers or mans.

Three sides with tabs and with a hole on the fourth side, I call house.

The shape with two tabs next to each other, and holes on the other two sides, I call pandas or panda face.  If you put the heart shape on the bottom, the two holes become the eyes and the two tabs are the ears.  Until I saw the panda face in this shape, I had a dislike for it, but now I enjoy it much more because of the connotation to cuteness.  Or maybe familiarity.  In doing the shape-based building, having a spacial familiar relationship with the shapes has helped me successfully and happily build. 

All-holes.  The holes are also called blanks, pockets, slots, or locks.

All-tabs.  Sometimes the tabs are called knobs, or keys.

I've found a fairly decent web page discussing piece shapes, jigsaw cuts, and all sorts of technical things over at oldpuzzles.com. I've not found a satisfactory source for official names of piece parts, or the piece shapes.  So I've made up my own that are pleasing to me.  I might think about this more than other people.

So here we are.