Rant Review: Cottage Retreat 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Hobbry, art by Rachel Bowen)

They must be hurling snowballs in Hell, as I finally found some Hobbry puzzles at Home Goods! I had just about convinced myself that the local HG and TJ Maxx just didn't carry the brand, as I had never seen them at either store. I was pleasantly surprised to come across a trio of them last week, and I grabbed the two I liked most. It would have been very nice if they'd had the entire set people have been finding recently, but I'm not about to complain! Does my first Hobbry puzzle live up to the hype? Read on to find out! 

I love the cozy scene depicted here, and though it has one of my most disliked puzzle elements-- namely, lots of foliage-- there's such a variety of elements and colors that it was much easier than it may appear. I don't enjoy sorting, but I knew going in that it would be necessary with this one. I kept it simple, however: I separated the edge pieces, of course, then made separate trays for predominantly blue, light brown, and obvious foliage pieces. The birds were easy to set aside while sorting, and I put them together as I worked on the edge. I missed five edge pieces, more than usual for me, then built the lake. That flowed naturally into the canoe and beaver, then I did the ground area while separating out the pieces for the firepit and chimney. The cabin went together quickly, and then I did the red, orange, and green trees, leaving the bare branches and sky for last. 90% of it was done in a single evening.

The package is quite nice, and is undoubtedly a large part of why this brand is so popular. The box has a nice matte texture, and the gold foil lettering adds a nice bit of pop. It has a somewhat premium vibe, despite being in the $10-13 range. The included pinup featuring the puzzle art is on nice thick paper, but is small enough that it's not likely to be of much help. The pieces have a very nice matte texture, similar to the box. The feel of the pieces reminds me a bit of the Trefl Prime I did a few months ago, though these pieces are thinner and have paper backing. False fits were possible, but not prevalent. The fit is nice and snug, to the point that pieces sometimes suffered minor damage when separating them. I'm not looking forward to attempting to take it apart without damaging it! There's a special piece with no pegs in lower right corner. I'm assuming this is present in all of their puzzles as a signature piece, like the ringed planet piece in Aquarius puzzles. It's a neat touch. I enjoyed my first Hobbry, and will definitely keep an eye out for more whenever I'm in that part of town. Hopefully it won't take me so long to find more!

Editing this slightly later to add my experience with disassembly. It wasn't nearly as bad as expected. I grabbed the top strip and gave it a pull, and it kind of "unzipped" from the rest of the puzzle. I split that into three blocks, put each into a gallon baggy one at a time, and thrashed each one around a bit with my hand to make the pieces disassemble before moving on to the next one. If there was any damage done, it was minor enough that I didn't notice. I won't be shocked if I go to reassemble it at some point and discover minor damage to a few pieces, but I didn't notice any, and there certainly wasn't the widespread damage some have experienced. It makes me wonder if Hobbry have changed something in the manufacturing process with newer batches.