Quick Recap

Puzzle Jam South, Van Gogh and Holiday Orders

Terra Rodgers
September 14, 2025

This newsletter has been extremely sporadic. I am going to try to send it out once a month going forward. Next month will include an interview with Anne Williams. Please share and encourage puzzle friends to subscribe. An important tidbit I learned from DeAnna at Oakland Puzzle Company: if you get tired of any email subscription, just unsubscribe- do not mark it as spam unless it truly is. Marking a newsletter email as spam makes the email provider more likely to send it to spam for other people.

Puzzle Jam South

We’ve been home from Puzzle Jam South for a week. It was fabulous, and (of course) exhausting. I enjoyed seeing old friends, chatting face-to-face with people I only knew virtually, and meeting new people. The Community Puzzle, Puzzical Chairs, swag bags, scroll saw cutting were big hits, as was working ALL THE PUZZLES. I’m developing an idea to make small versions of the Community Puzzle available, so stay tuned. The Community Puzzle will be available through the Puzzle Jam, Inc., traveling puzzle library, probably in January. Puzzle people really are the best people.

photo by John Rausch

Jammin’ All ‘Round

I have 4 of the Puzzle Jam South 2025 speed puzzles left and available for purchase on my website. I designed the image and cut and Rebel Puzzles produced it. I really enjoyed working with Colette and Marc and then getting to chat with them last weekend. The puzzle has 462 pieces and is challenging.

Van Gogh/ Makers’ Showcase

Another new thing we tried at PJS this year was to choose an image for everyone who was interested to cut. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences in our cuts. Mark Majors of M Squared Puzzles and I must share a brain. He had one idea that I didn’t have and I had one idea that he didn’t have, but otherwise, we considered all of the same options.

My version of Van Gogh’s Bedroom at Arles is for sale. It has 508 pieces that vary from 1/4” to 1 1//4” thick. It also has: layers, dropouts, hinges, one irregular edge, a drawer with a hand carved knob that opens and 3 figure pieces. All 3 figure pieces are hand painted on the back, and two of them are multi-piece. Size is ~12×15.” $1000. Email me if you are interested. [email protected]

The back of the figure pieces.

Subscriptions

September marks one year of subscription puzzles. I appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm for these small puzzles. They’re fun to cut and source treats to go with them. There are currently 3 places left for the fall subscription. Those puzzles and treats will ship at the end of October, November and December. This is a non-recurring subscription, so you have to renew every three months if you want to keep receiving them.

I marbled wood to make the subscription puzzles celebrating Pride in June. I only included one figure piece “joy” but cut the puzzle with lots of different connectors to balance the difficulty of the image.

A New Cut Design & Holiday Orders

I happened upon a different cut that I’m calling corn stalks when I was color line cutting this wide comb pattern. It requires extra concentration not to get lost in the pattern and to make sure everything interlocks but I think it’s worth it. It does create fewer pieces per inch despite how thin some of the pieces can be.

I still have a little marbled wood left and plan to marble more before long. If you want something specific, please let me know the colors and marbling style you are interested in.

The few puzzles that didn’t sell at PJS are listed on the website as ready to ship but if you want something new from me this winter, you will probably need to order sooner rather than later. If you need it by a particular date let me know what that date is when you order.

From the Garden

We’ve picked 2-3 bushels of pears from our trees and made several batches of pear butter as well as freezing some for smoothies. This was the first year the tree we planted has produced, while our old tree has produced most years. We also bought apples at PJS, so now we’re making apple sauce and apple-pear sauce. We’ve had just enough rain that the tomatoes have survived on their own which was good since I did not have extra brain cells to devote to remembering to water.