A Challenging Puzzle

My sister-in-law gifted me with this puzzle at the end of December. She had started working on the border but decided it was too hard and gave up. Knowing I like puzzles she thought I might be up for the challenge.

I too started with the border but found that there were a few missing pieces. I didn't let that stop me. This was clue #2 that I ignored.

The next step wasn't too bad, but yet somewhat challenging.

If this was challenging, then clue #3 was: maybe the rest of pieces would be way tougher to fit together.

Normally sorting is a good place to start, but even that was somewhat daunting.

This was definitely not the final sort. Over time I learned to recognize small discrepancies and resorted again and again .

Slowly I was able to build around the monarch butterfly but then I hit the point of asking myself if I really wanted to continue. It was getting harder and sometimes more than an hour would pass without finding a place for one new piece.

This was about the point where I had to make a decision. Should I give up or had I invested too much time to stop now.

Obviously I decided to keep going.

It really should be getting easier by now...but it's not!

Resorted to grouping the pieces by shape. It's not getting easier so whatever it takes.

Still have to find home for so many pieces. Yes, I know, it's upside down. I spend 1/2 my time looking at it from this direction.

I'm getting so close to the end, I feel like it should be getting easier. Don't be fooled. It doesn't get easier. I don't know how that's possible but I do know I might not ever want to look at blue and orange together again.

Saturday, February 8th.

Completed except for the 3 missing border pieces that I knew were missing from the start. It took 40 days and about 175 hours. Obviously I didn't document the number of hours spent on this, but trust me when I say 175 hours is a very conservative estimate.

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