You mentioned my strategy: quitting.

I don't do a lot of jigsaw puzzles, but when working on a difficult crossword puzzle or puzzle hunt puzzle, one of the greatest tricks I use it to take a break. It's so easy to get stuck in a brain rut and an impossible solution will turn out to be really obvious after a snack :)

Not a very big puzzler but like your channel, and had an idea I thought of sharing. When you were doing solid sections by shape I imagine there is a lot of cycling of trying different pieces. I'd suggest sorting the basic shape groups themselves in some order. Same width or height of a knob. That way you can implement simple search algorithms, like binary searches to speed up the trial process. Say for instance you sort the castle pieces by width of the bottom edge, You can compare the middle width piece to the spot you are looking to fill, and immediately knock out half the castle pieces based on whether it's too wide or too narrow in one trial. Then you repeat by taking the middle width of what's left and knock out another half. Generally the speed is log2(n) To understand the power of this you can narrow down 256 pieces to one in 8 piece trials, and that's before accounting for intuition. Oh also if the sorting is taking too long for that implement a simple merge or binary insertion sort, they are both super quick and are the easiest to perform with physical objects. This sorting is sort of what you are starting to do when you separate the wide and narrow pieces but taken to the extreme so you can really take full advantage. Can you tell I'm a programmer?

I feel your pain after doing just different shades of grey this past week. Almost finished though thank god. Your doing awesome on this. Don’t think I could do this one I gave up on the sky on the collessium puzzle last week. Think large areas of sky are just boring.

Watching your channel helped me to tackle my first 1000 piece puzzle a few weeks ago, these tips and tricks are so helpful! I appreciate you combining all the tips I learned from watching you here. Blue 💙😁

Hahaha

ROFL 🤣

I'd like to add one Difficulty strategy that I use on puzzles where picture has limited solid- color areas; landscapes, structures, machinery, etc. I simply assemble the puzzle without viewing the picture during assembly. It does require edge sorting and color sorting to get started, and progress. The challenge is to assemble the edge areas after the main "objects" have been assembled in the center - Without - peeking at the picture!

This is my dads humour and I love it 🤣

lol

I also appreciate the effort she puts into a profession production every time.

For sure! This is beautiful!

Yes, so true. I make videos and I was sitting here wondering how long it took her to edit this video. It was so well made.

I try to only accept sponsorships from companies that I genuinely like and whose products fit into the content I was already going to make!

@@KarenPuzzles I got genuinely worried for you that Blue Kazoo would be mad and withdraw their sponsorship for each other brand you mentioned! 😅 It’s nice to know that it apparently isn’t a problem. ☺️ Do sponsors generally need to approve the final video before you upload?

I'll be honest, anytime I hear coming up someone is going to "talk about today's sponsor" I automatically skip the 10 seconds over and over until I see it's back to the video I wanted to watch (which is why I clicked on it!) With this one, I skipped obviously too much and heard her talking about the puzzles again, so I was like "Wait a minute...." and backed up. Then I realize all she did was mention the puzzle company and I was like "Oh cool, that's all it is??" I didn't give it a chance because everyone ELSE always yap yap yaps that has nothing to do with getting back to the video, lol 😆

@@danielleking262 same. I always skip, except for a few KZfaqrs who do a funny skit for the sponsor portion. But it’s also not great for the youtuber if everyone skips, because then no one will click over to the sponsor’s website. This is a great solution. You don’t feel like you’re being sold to, and I actually wanted to check out the product and even put one of their puzzles on my Amazon wishlist. I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on a sponsor link before prior to this.

There’s 2 Big Ben 1,000 piece puzzles that I gave up on the day I started them. Pieces were too small, could fit anywhere but also weren’t the best quality in terms of staying together, details didn’t match the box exactly, and the image was just boring in general. I tried separating pieces by color and detail, but one puzzle had roof tiles that I didn’t want to deal with, and the other had petals that had lines you could only see up close.

Sorry for your loss. That’s a good memory. I remember that puzzle. Was it round?

@@sj6919 Yes, it was round. As best as I can remember, it was also the only jigsaw puzzle he ever did.

I compare it to the Heinz puzzle later in the video!

At first I thought it was the Heinz ketchup puzzle

Fun fact it’s off topic but I’m buying the 570 colour sphere puzzle she reviewed last year for Easter! Can’t wait!!

I did the ketchup puzzle by myself... it was pain

@@nubbsyaboi263 oh jeez my heart goes out to you my guy! 🧡 are you a fan of Splatoon by the way?? I am too!

Me too....love Karen’s giggle. lol.

Yes! And also it keeps you from coming back to that piece and trying it again.

Wow, that's so interesting! I'm so glad you're still able to do and enjoy puzzles!

That's exactly how I do it as well! Maybe it takes a bit longer, but I don't think I'm 'missing' anything. It's just what you're used to... That being said, I don't think I'd have the patience to do a solid red puzzle. I recently did a puzzle with a lot of blue sky with a very slight trading, and it almost drove me mad 😁

I'm in the same boat! I think I prefer random cut because the pieces are way more distinct when looking for one

I can relate! I think this is why I like random cut too. It is very hard for me to visualize some images.

I’m exactly the same! I can’t visualize anything but I can explain to myself what I’m looking for

I'm just happy there are so many people out there who want to watch me do my puzzles!

Karen Rocks!!!❤️❤️❤️. She really has motivated me to get back into my jigsaw puzzle 🧩 groove again. This baby boomer, thanks her!!!❤️❤️❤️

BLUE Ribbon, on every level!

I appreciate her content. I always look for others she’s kind of in a league of her own.

@@KarenPuzzles Honest Karen, I found you through the try guys video and came here because it was so niche. I don't even do puzzle LOL but Ive stayed for you and your personality. You could be doing anything and we'd watch it! I'm sure there is a group of people that would even watch you talk while you wait for paint to dry haha

Lmao I just watched it and I’m still shook by the sass

Same as myself, I found out that I have aphantasia recently, but I have some sort of intuition when a piece can fit in a spot or not (it's not perfect, obviously, but makes me faster when solving puzzles)

Huh. I have quite good mental vision which is necessary for me as an engineer, but I am awful at puzzles. Dreadful. Wordsearches too. They would always stress me out when assigned in school. Now you've got me wondering if there is a connection.

@@TheMetalButcher Doubtful, I've got aphantasia too, but not amazing at puzzle, and dreadful would fit my skill level at wordsearches too. If there is a lower tier skill level than dreadful, that would describe my ability to "see" roating 3D vectors in an equation. I love doing puzzles as it alows my mind to drift into pleasant thoughts. Stubbornes is what helps me over the humps when it is all same colour and same shape , sorting and trying, repeat.

Another person with Aphantasia here who likes puzzles. My ADHD and low muscle tone limit me much more than my inability to visualise. The number of times I have had to stop too early because of my weak back and then accidentally missed my hyperfocus session to leave a half completed puzzle on a table that I can no longer sit for.

So what I do is I just take out the adjacent piece(s) and hold them next to all of my sorted pieces.

Never!

Me

I did

I did.:-O:-(:-D

I did for sure lol

I think I need that on a T-shirt.

@@mMonazzzLindozz YESS OMGGGG

i call it a person too ! 🤣

No pokeys 😂 I love that! I call them nubs (outs) and innies (like a belly button lol). Then I call the pieces singles, doubles, triples, and quads by how many nubs they have, or Xs if they have none

I call the pieces X (no nubs, like x marks the spot on the treasure map), Normal (with two opposing nubs like the symbol on the box), Little Man (one nub as a head), Fat Man (three nubs as head and arms), Four Way (four nubs like a road junction) and L or Arrowhead (two adjacent nubs). Everyone seems to have their own names for them =D

@@Culpride little man and fat man, that’s awesome lol

So interesting!

Me too

@@NCSArbeitsproben not really. That's a medical condition called Aphantasia, it makes you not be able to picture things in your head. Very interesting!

@@luciafrau125 nah i meant that at some point you just start trying every piece😂

I’m the same Kira and like you have to choose busy puzzles or try each piece. It can be frustrating but the reward is great when it’s done.

I found this tip to be very efficient and time saving as well. Will try it for my next puzzle.

This comment makes my day! I'm so happy you're enjoying my videos!

Aww your welcome Karen! You seeing this comment has made my day! I’m currently doing a double sided star wars Death Star round puzzle by ridleys it also comes in a tall cylindrical box like your donut puzzle and honestly it’s so hard, the texture is similar all the through with differences in tone but I haven’t even started the dark part yet because that’ll be something 😆, you should definitely try it!

Probably more expensive to change the factory process for just a few puzzle designs. Definitely makes for a good laugh! 😆

I lovit lol

can be used as wrapping paper

Somebody at the designerdepartment had a good day when they thought of this.😂

Good luck!

How many people worked on it? Are you on Instagram?

Wow!

Slow clap (I can’t get anyone in my family to do puzzles with me 🥺, I enjoy them anyway but you’re so lucky!)

@@catherineperez9779 there were two of us. we counted 544 manhours.

Putting the difficulty on extra extra hard mode 😂

@@KarenPuzzles Haha, I thought when you gave the tip about non-busy backgrounds that it could be a good element for a puzzle challenge/competition - to have the added challenge of a patterned table cloth!

If you have a big cardboard box cut it up and use that or I just bought one of those trifold school project displays at the dollar store and it works really well you can do the puzzle on the middle then fold up the sides and clip with some binder clips so you can store it. You can get them in different sizes.

Good luck! You've got this!

So interesting! And what a great strategy!

I have aphantasia (no mind’s eye at all) so cannot picture the shapes. I wish the pieces had standard names by everyone. Even if it were castle and people. I do not like inny or pokey. Patience is required for sorting for sure. You cannot be in a hurry whatever method you use.

@@miriamdixon3850 i loved that karen named the pieces in this video. i'm going to adopt those names. maybe they can become the standard seeing as there isn't one already. and yes sorting is very important for us. i spent much longer on the last puzzle i did because i was lazy and did not sort the pieces as well as i should have.

Thought it was just me! 😁

@@JT1358 I just noticed that Karen does it when she finishes her puzzles and I do it when I finish mine, so it must just be a natural thing to do. So satisfying.

I was doing that to a puzzle I finished this weekend and the bf was staring at me like a weirdo. I told him to come try cause it's super satisfying and he agreed and now let's me rub my puzzles in piece (pun intended).

I never used to do that at all. But I've noticed I've started doing it ever since I discovered Karen's channel!

OMG I do the same for all the puzzles I have completed!!! I even leave it for a few days for me to run my hands on it every time I walk by it before I return the pieces back to the box 😋

I have aphantasia as well.

I love jigsaw puzzles!!

I was just reading about this. It sounds like you have aphantasia which is not having a mind’s eye. II guess it affects somewhere between 1-3ish percent of people but it occurred to me how easily one could live their life without ever realizing they experience the world a little differently than most others and just assume people are speaking metaphorically when they says things like they are imagining a beach for instance.

I did a really nice star wars collector's puzzles a couple months ago, 500 pieces so I thought it would be easy. The pieces were all standard cut and it was actually quite challenging. Took me an entire weekend.

I'm the exact same way with how my mind functions

I got given a blown up wedding pic of mine and I just cannot do it. I want to pay someone to do it for me so I can frame it it's just too difficult and the pieces dont click together so I gave up quickly

You can try doing the outline of your dog first. Like where you can see part pup part grass on the pieces. And do the same where the black and white meet. It helps me when I do puzzles like that!

So early!