To assume nice, normal reasonable people look at the box when doing a jigsaw puzzle?

[SkippyDies]

Following a post on FB yesterday when I revealed my new and most excellent jigsaw puzzle assembly command station, a friend, possibly an ex-friend now commented with surprise and alarm about the presence of the jigsaw puzzle box in my photos.

To my own surprise and alarm apparently looking at the box is cheating.

She and her family look at the box briefly before starting and then put it away. They jigsaw blind.

I’m very surprised that this is considered to be normal behaviour.

She did a poll on FB but it’s not really valid is it, what with her friends list containing a cohort of weird non-boxers. It’s a family thing apparently.

Maybe mn can help clarify that she is a giant freak.

YANBU = I look at the box
YABU = I do my jigsaws blind

I look at the box. I have a favourite puzzle that I must have made about 20 times over the years. I still occasionally look at the box

To me it's cheating to look at the box but see I'm in the minority! I don't care what others do but I can't look at the box or I feel like I have let myself down!

@DontGoIntoTheLongGrass I hate it when people say that they spat their tea out laughing etc. but I really did spit my G&T out when I read your Ikea flatpack comment!

I don't think looking at the box is cheating but I dont tend to do it.

Sort into edges/inners. Do edges. Sort inners into vague colour piles. Pick a colour and have a bash. If there's a main item on the jigsaw (I.e a bridge or house) I start with that.

@NameChangeOctober
HI Barbara - I did do them face side down when I was a child!

Were you face down or were the pieces face down?!!

When I was a kid I had a double sided Where's Wally jigsaw. It was practically impossible.

We spend our jigsaw time wrestling the box off each other to look...

Saying that once you're in the zone and you pick up a random bit of sky or whatever, without clear features, and you just know where it's going to go - confirmed as it smugly clicks into place, well that is a feeling like no other. Is that how the boxless feel at all times?

DH and I clash over this. He looks at the box constantly whereas I only look at the box in desperation.

I like to sort by shape as well. Start with the edges. Do obvious bits. Then sort by shape for the trickier last bits where everything is the same sort of colour.

DH hates the shapes method but concedes that it does work sometimes.

I like the methodical elimination of pieces. He doesn't.

Mam jigsaws like me, thankfully!

@Parkandride - yep! I like to figure as much out without the box as possible.

I've just been teaching DD how to choose the right piece for her jigsaw by looking at the picture.

I’m currently halfway through a jigsaw of Stonehenge.

I’m a box-looker usually, but have completed most of the bits I’ve done so far without looking at the box this time, because my jigsaw-station is the end of the dining room table, and my feral children keep putting stuff down on the box and I can’t see it without putting it all away (which I am too lazy to do each day!)

Also, due to incredibly poor positioning of the dining table, the light from the ceiling light keeps bouncing off the puzzle pieces, meaning trial and error is the way to go for this one.

But generally, under normal conditions, who on earth would consider looking at the box as cheating?! I mean, ok, some people may prefer to do it that way, but cheating? Nope.

Your friend is as mad as a hatter

Well then I envy you @FeedMeSantiago

I look at the box!!

But now I'm thinking I should order one to do without looking at the box... might slow me down a bit considering I did the last one in less then 24 hours.

Never heard that in my life! Why have the picture right there on the front if you should look at it? Why not just a general description of what it is then put the picture inside the box?

Although now I think about it, it does somehow feel quite exciting not to look at the box and just let it emerge!

*if you should NOT look at it.

I’ve just finished the one I was doing and off the back of this thread tried the last section I had left without looking at the box. It wasn’t too bad. Definitely worked well for some pieces but I did end up looking at the box. And switching the overhead light on. And squinting a lot. Then remembered I didn’t have my glasses on. Might resort to a magnifying glass.

Might try the next one not doing the edges first!

I do them without the box, with my toes. I light a stick of dynamite and if I haven’t finished the puzzle in 10 seconds, I get blown up.

Puzzling blind is just plain weird. I bet she owns a toilet brush too. Ditch her!

Grabbner 😂

Who are these weird 5% who think YABU?

Where the fuck are you getting your puzzles?

They were mystery/crime solving puzzles and came with a description of the crime and the picture on the box was related to the final scene but was filled with clues (you had to complete the puzzle then solve the crime) - they came from a jigsaw shop at Meadowhall years ago. I can't recall all of them, but one was called 'Recipe for Murder'.

"I do them without the box, with my toes. I light a stick of dynamite and if I haven’t finished the puzzle in 10 seconds, I get blown up."

Bit of an amateur, aren't you, @Grabbner? I myself put my jigsaws on the dining room table, then go into the kitchen and complete them using the power of my mind.

@WeBuiltCisCityOnSeeingSouls - I’m working my way up to your levels. Tonight I’m just taking it easy - going to do a puzzle as described above, but hanging upside down. Trying to figure out how to get the puzzle pieces to stick to the ceiling.

Pffft. Amateurs. I complete mine as part of a triathlon - swimming in a pool of piranhas while wearing a tuna bathing suit, cycling through a lion enclosure wearing Lady Gaga's meat dress and running through a chimpanzee enclosure smeared in mashed banana. Backwards. With my hands tied behind my back. On a school night!

@iklboo we are on lockdown. You are clearly not following the rules and are thus disqualified, FOR EVER, from doing jigsaws.