Birds, puzzles and boxes

There must be some kind of lazy bug in the air as I don't get my sewing  going. I have ideas and plans, but all I can manage is some knitting in the evenings. The birdwatching nearly two weeks ago went fine, we saw 8 species but no big numbers of individual birds. The Common Redpoll was this year's most frequently seen bird. We have one male who has already started to change colour and grow red feathers on his chest.

 

 

The Great Spotted Woodpecker has also found our bird restaurant and enjoys the peanuts and the fat, but he also looks for insects in the trees.

 

With no inspiration for sewing, I have been playing with jigsaw puzzles from my childhood. Actually they are from my mother's childhood and youth in the 1920's and 30's, all hand sawn. We used to assemble them on rainy days in the summer. The original boxes are folded of heavy brown paper, many of them crushed and torn, some mended with masking tape.

 

 

I wanted to try if I can make new boxes to replace the worst ones. I took one box apart, made some measurements and started. Some of you know that my dear daughter is a master bookbinder; I think I have inherited some of her skills because this went really well for a beginner.

 

 

One width from the paper roll gave me three squares so I needed cut another strip to make a lid for the odd bottom I made with the third square. And so on...

 

 

First box completed. I added a picture of the finished puzzle in the box because some of these puzzles are really difficult.

 

Here you see this one: look how the pieces are cut on the colour lines on the minarets.

I made nine boxes in slightly different sizes, copied the original logos from the boxes and glued the copies on the new boxes.

 

 

I think I must go through every jigsaw puzzle, put it together, measure it, count the pieces, take a photo, and add it to to box with the pieces. Some puzzles have a note about missing pieces, but I also have a box with some spare pieces. It would be fun to find the right picture for all of them.