A New Puzzle Competition

This past month I was able to attend the first Portland Jigsaw Masters (PJM) speed competition in Oregon. The event was sponsored by Pomegranate which we all know and love and Portland Puzzle Company, which is a very small brand from the area. The competition was from August 2nd to 4th and had individual, pairs, teams and mini sprint competitions. I competed in all but the sprints and thought I’d share my experience with the puzzles with you all! 

Before we get into the event itself, I have to tell you about a very fun experience I had prior to the event. I was invited by Pomegranate to go on a mini tour of their office space in Portland! What a treat! Me and a couple other influencers who work with them were invited and we got to explore their office and learn about their brand, artists, history, coloring, their staff and got to see a sneak peak of their upcoming collection. I’m happy to say I’m so glad Puzzle Warehouse has Pomegranate’s  new puzzles on their site, cause they are lovely! The two new ones that caught my eye were Casey Gray: Still Life with Flowers and William Morris 500-Piece Circular Jigsaw Puzzle. 

If you haven’t tried the brand for a while they are going through a bit of a rebrand and the quality of their new products are so good!! To be honest, I’ve had mixed experiences with their quality in the past, but since I started doing some of their new stuff, wow! I’m so impressed. Recently I did a couple of Pomegranate’s new circular puzzles; Springtime and Justin Lovato: Flower Mandala. 

While they are tricky, they are very entertaining. They are 500 pieces and have a hexagon shaped piece. The fit and coloring of these puzzles are phenomenal! So of course while I was at the Pomegranate headquarters and they offered us a couple of their puzzles, I chose Susan Barnett: Mandala IV and Erin E. Hunter: Floral Compass. I love these images so much!! 

DAY 1

Once we had some baked goods and chatted for a bit, off we went to PJM for our first day of competitions! I was so excited to check in, walk around and chat with other puzzlers. Within the space there were a couple vendors, a table to swap personal puzzles, a table with a community puzzle on it and of course a whole bunch of tables and lighting for the competitions. Puzzle Warehouse was the sponsor who provided the large piece count community puzzle.

Day one of competitions were for two rounds of Individual and the first batch of Pairs Prelims. After a quick opening ceremony of the event, the competitions started. I participated in two events, the second round of individuals and the pairs competition. For the individual rounds we had to do a 300 piece puzzle. Since I was not in Individual A I didn’t get a chance to complete the first puzzle, called Belmont Firehouse.  It was by Portland Puzzle Company but I heard it was pretty tricky.  My competition did a Pomegranate puzzle called Pat Scott: A Resounding Success. This image was one of their older images. For this puzzle I started with the cluster of tree branches at the top, followed by the row of instrument cats, and then the side with the big tree. Once those areas were complete I worked on the border a bit and then went by the color of the kitties to finish off the puzzle. While I wasn’t expecting to do the best, I was very excited to see my time. I placed 8th in my round coming in at 45:13. The first place for this round came in at 32:58 by Iryna Shvydchenko. Since the top 13 of the 37 people advanced that meant I was going to finals!

After a short little lunch break, it was time for my pairs prelim. My partner was someone who I traveled with. She lives close by and, fun story, we had never puzzled together prior to this event! Our goal was to finish the puzzle within our two hour time limit. For pairs we needed to complete a 500 piece puzzle called Sweetheart by Portland Puzzle Company. Here I realized what the Individual A group was talking about with their puzzle.

While the images of this brand are stunning and the coloring was beautiful, it was a hard brand to speed puzzle. Within the competition space there were a lot of lighting towers. Since the puzzles were very shiny, it made for a lot of glare. Depending on where you were sitting in the event space, you would have very drastic lighting. We were in between light boxes and holy glare! It made it very tricky to see the puzzle clearly. The puzzle however was a beautiful image by Joe Reece, beautiful but tricky! My partner and I didn’t have much of a plan going into the event so we were very happy to have finished at 1:24:51. First place was from the duo named Rock Solid at only 38:44! However, something we hadn’t anticipated was that we got 20th place which meant we were the final team to qualify for finals!!! 

Day 2 

For some, day 2 was very busy. They held the final round of individual and pairs preliminaries and the team competition. Since we only participated in the teams event which started later in the afternoon, we had the morning to explore Portland. We went to the farmer’s market, a Goodwill store in hopes of finding puzzles, peach picking, and had some wine at a local winery. During our adventures the puzzles for the other events included Springtime in Laurelhurst Park by Portland Puzzle Company and Chiura Obata 500-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle by Pomegranate.

Once we got back to the event space it was time for teams! Our team name was We Put Pants on for This and again, while we all live close to each other, we had never puzzled together before. For this event we had two and a half hours and had to complete two puzzles. When the timer started we started on a 300 piece puzzle called City of Roses by Portland Puzzle Company. We didn’t know what the second puzzle would be as they were bagged up. The first puzzle was really fun. We all started on our places and got it together pretty quickly. Then… we had to unbag the 1000 piece puzzle. 

I was not expecting Carlos Gámez de Francisco: Girl with Pink Flamingos by Pomegranate. While I love quirky images, I knew this one was going to be tricky. The coloring was a bit muted and there were a lot of similar patterns. Starting off I had started on the edges, while one person started on the chair, one on the black jacket and our fourth person worked on the legs of the flamingos. There were several times we changed seats and bounced around when we were feeling stuck. Since the textures were all so similar I decided to sort some of the trickier sections by piece shape and I think that is what helped us finish. We ended up placing 7th place at 2:08:12!! First place was at 1:14:27 by Sarah Schuler, the Roiter Sisters & Becka Taylor. You can tell this was a tough challenge, out of the 34 teams only 9 finished their puzzles within the timeframe!

After the team event they did have the option to be involved in Sprints. The puzzles they had for this was from Hilma af Klint 120-Piece Double-Sided Jigsaw Puzzle Set. Since I had already done those puzzles several times during my recent trip to Maine, I decided to sit this one out and head back to the hotel for some dinner.

Day 3
Onto the final day of competitions! On this day I participated in BOTH of the finals. I knew I wasn’t going to place, but I was excited to at least get the puzzles. First up was pairs. For finals we had to complete a 1000 piece puzzle within 2 hours! This puzzle was by far my favorite of the competition. Pacita Abad: L.A. Liberty by Pomegranate. The colors on this puzzle were fab!!! Starting off we divided up our strengths. I was really good at the solid colored lines around the lady, and my partner was really good at seeing patterns and worked on the ladies dress and border. This was a stunning puzzle and one I could see me doing again. While we were just shy of finishing with only a handful of pieces to go, we were still impressed with how far we got.  We came in 31st out of 39 teams. The first place duo of Sarah Schuler and Becca Taylor got their puzzle done at 56:18. 

 
 After a lunch break, in which we finished our pairs puzzle it was time for the individual finals! This was another really fun puzzle called Mushroom Bus by Portland Puzzle Company and we had two hours to complete it. This puzzle was another super bright puzzle and another one where the lighting made a lot of glare within the puzzle.  I started this puzzle pretty strongly working on the bus, the beam of light and the big mushroom. Once those areas were done, there were just a ton of little mushrooms everywhere, which sometimes was hard to tell where they went. 

One thing you can’t anticipate when prepping for these events is knowing how you’ll be with all of the external factors at the competition. The event was being streamed on YouTube and so there were a lot of cameras and since I was right on the edge of the competition space there were a lot of people talking and watching on my side. I must say, it’s a bit overwhelming. Especially once I got to the end and there were only a few people left. I had a couple cameras, a lot of people around me and only a couple minutes left to complete the puzzle. Which, I’m glad to say I did!! I just squeaked in at 1:58:19! This put me in 36th place out of 39 finalists. First place was Cathy Roiter at 58:36, followed by her sister Jeanne at 59:50.

So that’s my experience at the first Portland Jigsaw Masters competitions. I had so much fun and really enjoyed the vibe of this competition. Even though it is a bit stressful competing I loved that they played music and it was a much more relaxed atmosphere. My decision to go to these events is based on the social aspect and the fact that even if I don’t do well in the competitions, I still get the puzzle in the end. Doing the puzzles is fun and seeing how fast I can go does give me a bit of a thrill. You’d think as an introvert, I wouldn’t dream of attending something like a convention alone would appeal to me. However, after attending my first puzzle event a couple years ago, I’ve realized that attending puzzle events is super fun. It’s easy to make conversation with people you don’t know because you know you have something in common. 

Now, since my attendance at this event I have been given the opportunity to go to Spain for Worlds!! Do I think I’ll get through qualifying - probably not.  It’ll just be fun to go and meet some international puzzle friends. I still consider myself a casual puzzler, so my channel name on YouTube still fits. However, I’ve enjoyed dabbling into the speed puzzling world a bit. 

Wish me luck for Worlds!!!

Emilee @thecasuapuzzler