I'm Puzzled

Two puzzle posts in a row!  Have I become addicted? Yes, it's true, but that happened a long time ago.  I remember working on a Huey, Dewey and Louie puzzle when I was quite young.
  This one required way less time to complete and was a delightful change of pace from the blue butterfly puzzle in my last post.

First of all it's small, only 251 pieces and when completed measures 8" x 12 3/4".  But the big difference is, it's a wooden jigsaw puzzle made by Liberty Puzzles and the pieces are so unique.

There are no in/out tabs on Liberty pieces.  Instead they are perfectly cut in shapes that fit together like a hand in a glove.  Above are some examples of those shapes.

I didn't take photos during the process because this one went rather quickly... four hours and 15 minutes to be exact.  The completed puzzle, named German Butterflies, is a pretty little scene once all those unusual looking pieces fall into place.

The pieces that are really intriguing are the human shapes. They are made to interlock with so many other parts of the puzzle that they become a puzzle of their own.  About the only way find where these belong is to find pieces that fit into them vs trying to find where they fit into the puzzle.

I removed a few of them here so you can see how many other pieces touch these shapes.

A closeup gives a better idea of how this looks. This one touches 13 other pieces of the puzzle.

Here little twinkle toes has been plucked from the puzzle.

And here she is back in place.

This one shows the human figure raised above the spot where it fits.

Because a wooden puzzle is thicker than a cardboard puzzle, the pieces have to be lined up perfectly and dropped into place.  Sometimes it takes some patience to get all the edges lined up correctly, but when it drops in it's so sweet.

It's easy to see how the shapes fit together to form this yellow butterfly. Not so easy when it's just a pile of yellow pieces.

This is another Liberty puzzle I worked on recently.

This is a closeup of the table in the center of the puzzle.

This pic shows the tablecloth as it was being assembled.  It's clever how there is another story going on with the pieces that then turns into something else when all the pieces are in place.

Obviously Liberty puzzles cost a bit more than the average puzzle but the quality is superb.  There is pleasure in handling such well designed pieces and there is that element of surprise and delight when you figure out how these puzzles work.  But never think you have them figured out because each puzzle seems to have it's own challenges.