Stitching with Elli

“What is this?” Rose asked peaking up over the table edge to see what Alice and Ellen were looking at.

“It is a puzzle!” Alice answered. “Have you ever put together a puzzle, Rose? I haven’t, but Ellen and I are going to try.”

“Puzzles will help make us smarter and exercise our mind. Plus we can give us art appreciation.” Ellen informed Rose of the benefits of doing puzzles.

Alice, by this point, had gotten the lid off the box, and they were now looking over the pieces.

“No I haven’t done a puzzle before, but it looks like fun! How do we start, Ellen?” Rose replied.

“Edge pieces. We have to find all the edge pieces.” Ellen answered. She was very focused and when Ellen is focused she isn’t chatty.

They got to work. For a while all three of them bumped heads as they were looking in the box. Then Ellen and Alice settled into fitting the edge pieces together, while Rose searched for pieces.

“Yes!!!!!” The edge is finished! as soon as I put this piece in.” Ellen gloated triumphantly.

“What should I start looking for next?” Rose asked. She liked hunting for pieces…it was like a treasure hunt.

“Can you get me pieces of the tractors? I want to work on those.” Alice asked her.

“Tractor pieces coming up! ” Rose startled rummaging and digging thru the pieces.

“Ellen, are you sure this isn’t an edge piece? It looks like it has a straight edge?” Alice held up a piece for Ellen to look at.

“It certainly looks like one….but it can’t be. We finished the edge. I think it is just a middle piece impersonating an edge piece,” Ellen replied.

“Well, that is sneaky!” said Rose indignantly.

“It isn’t sneaky, it is just challenging our intellect.” Ellen said, peering over her glasses at  Rose. Rose mumbled about not liking her intellect challenged by sneaky puzzle pieces…but Ellen didn’t hear her.

Ellen said she was going to work on the trees at the top of the puzzle because that looked like the hardest part.

(10 min. later)

“Yay!!! This tractor is coming together great!!” Alice was excited. She was working on her section and she had several pieces connected all ready.

“I can’t get any of these together!!”” Ellen mourned….”Rose, have you found any more trees? I need some more pieces!”

” Ah ha! I found another tree piece for you, and a tractor piece for Alice!” Rose said emerging from the box to hand out the pieces.

The two puzzle workers pounced on them….anxious to see if they fit in anywhere.

Rose said she was done looking in the box for while…she was going to go work on the bottom corner.

“So who is going to get that book Emily is giving away?” Rose asked in general to whomever knew the answer.

There was silence from Ellen’s corner…She still wasn’t getting anywhere fitting pieces in, so she had resorted to looking in the box again. She was flipping over every single piece in the box. She had wanted to take them all out and spread them on the table, but the other two wouldn’t let her. They said it would be too crowded.

“Do you mean the Gift from the Lonely Doll book?” Alice asked.

“Yes that one,” Rose said.

“Emily said the giveaway ends tomorrow night. People can still enter it now, so we don’t know who is going to get it yet,” Alice told her.

“Do you suppose I could enter ?” asked Ellen “I really liked that book. Little bear was so funny.”

“Probably not… I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be okay, because you live here with Emily. I mean what if we all entered?? that would be about 17 entries…that wouldn’t be right. But, maybe Emily will get you your own copy for Christmas?” Alice answered her. “There! another piece in!  I think I have to attach it to the edge now.”

Ellen grumbled and grumped. She still hadn’t been able to attach many pieces in spite of the fact she was doing it the RIGHT way…and NOT working on it without attaching them to the frame, like some dolls.

Alice consoled her by saying it was “just because I have an easy section…If I was working on the hard part like you, I’m sure I wouldn’t be going fast either.”

Rose had decided to pick up two pieces and figure out where they went instead of working on a section.

Alice and Rose teamed up and soon had the bottom done! Ellen was making great progress on the top too.

“Here goes another one!!” Ellen said triumphantly. “I found it!! I’ve been looking for that one.”

Uh oh!! They have finished….except there is a piece missing!!

Ellen is checking the bottom of the lid…..Rose is checking the box….and Alice is looking on the floor.

“We just have to find it! I don’t want to have done all that work and not have it finished!!”

“Found it!!” Alice appeared triumphantly from under the table. “The cat had it!!”

“Umph! At least she didn’t eat it.” Ellen grumbled, but Rose thought it was funny.

Here is the finished puzzle!

Puzzles are a fun way to spend time together and a good way to relax from Christmas business….unless you are like Ellen and take it very very seriously…then it might not be relaxing 😉