Introducing the Quilt Shop Village Puzzle
I’m so excited to have my first puzzle with my art on it! The Quilt Shop Village puzzle is manufactured band distributed by Riley Blake Designs – the quilting fabric company I work with. Not only do they make amazing fabrics but they have a wide array of accessories and related products including puzzles!
Ask for the Quilt Shop Village puzzle in stores and online where Riley Blake Designs products are sold.
This 1,000 piece puzzle features my hand painted watercolors, compiled into a quilt shop village complete with a quilt festival, schoolhouse and of course – fabric shops!
Monica’s Quilt Shop was named in honor of my maternal grandmother Monica who used to sew when I was little. She wasn’t a quilter but I still have a doll she made for me – complete with brown hair and green eyes to match my own. 😍
Watch the video to learn more about how I designed the puzzle and see more of the detail up close.
Puzzles aren’t just pretty and a great way to pass the time – they are good for your brain!
Puzzles Exercise Both Sides of Your Brain.
Working on puzzles uses both sides of your brain giving you a mental workout.
Puzzles Improve Your Memory
If you want to be proactive and do all you can to avoid cognitive decline that can lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s, puzzles can help! Puzzles don’t rely on learned knowledge but visualization of shapes and short term memory. Puzzle can help form new brain connections that help reduce the amount of brain damage in Alzheimer’s patients. (read more at webmd.com >)
Puzzles can also improve problem-solving skills, visual and spatial reasoning and can lower stress levels.
My sister disagrees about puzzles lowering stress levels – she says they stress her out! But studies show that when concentrating on the puzzle your mind focuses on the one task and that encourages our brains to go into a meditative state. My brain certainly can’t spin on things when I’m trying to find a missing piece of sky so it must be true!
Puzzles can improve your IQ by 4 points!
A study at the University of Michigan showed that doing puzzles for at least 25 minutes a day can boost your IQ by 4 points.
I’m sold – I’m going to start doing more puzzles
After learning all that I can see why puzzles are so popular for kids in their formative years! It also shows that we should keep doing puzzles as we age in an effort to keep our brains as healthy as possible.
I lost my dad to Alzheimer’s in 2016 so I’m definitely interested in things I can do to decrease my chances of getting it as well. You can read more about him and the book I wrote to help families dealing with dementia at PivotToHappy.com
Tara,
Your puzzle is lovely. It’s interesting and a bit of a challenge to complete. Elizabeth and I are almost finished the puzzle. We hope you produce another puzzle soon. I like what you wrote about puzzles being good for the brain and for reducing stress levels. Thanks for the puzzle and the commentary.
A Marie
Thank you and yes – when I was working on the trees I was glad there were slight variations in color and texture! I don’t think I’ll ever be a person who does a puzzle that is one, solid color – but I have friends who do!