Mystery Piece

Subtitle: Always Look Again

Second Subtitle: Underserved Hoopla 

Sometimes I start a draft of a post ahead of time....uploading a few photos...or just getting an idea down. Then I settle in for the evening and finish it up.  

Just caught the sun before is set yesterday.

I started this draft yesterday....and was going to finish it tonight....but the story actually changed. I decided to go ahead and tell the WHOLE story anyway starting with my first draft.  Sorry about that...but I just have to.

First draft I started yesterday:

About a year ago I wrote post called "Let The Mystery Be"....and I was tempted to use the same title for this post.  I have another mystery....this time it was a mystery piece.  

I picked up this piece several times while doing the button puzzle trying to figure out where it belonged.

If you do puzzles you've done it too....hold the piece up to the picture on the cover trying to find the exact spot where it goes. I did it over and over with this piece....and I just didn't see it.  

It actually looked familiar and was in keeping with the colors and feel of the puzzle.....so I knew it would eventually find a home.  Or would it?

I finished the puzzle....and there wasn't a spot for it.  Was it an extra piece? A piece from a previous puzzle that didn't get picked up? It was a mystery piece.

I guess I just have to let the mystery be.

Isn't it gorgeous!!! It's up there as one of my favorites!

I even celebrated the puzzle playing with my own buttons. Here's "Vivienne's Buttons" and a few of MaryAnn's buttons. They were a little hard to see.....

so I did another arrangement. I can lose myself in this kind of thing.

Second draft....about 7:00 this evening.....Look Again.

Before I posted this I thought I better do one last look.....I wouldn't want to make all this hoopla about something that didn't really deserve it.  So I checked the puzzle again...this time running my hands across the whole puzzle. Sure enough....I found the spot and I know exactly what happened.

Because I like to work right in front of me I often do the top of the puzzle and move it up before I attach the whole border. The top often ends up tucked  under the lamp or the puzzle box....or my decorative sit abouts. I actually thought I had finished that top row of jeweled buttons so never even considered that it would go there. AND....the piece was the same color as the table so the empty space blended in.

If you look closely at the finished photo above....I bet you would not have known there was a piece missing.  

Each one of those jeweled buttons at the top has a little star like this....so that's why it looked familiar.  So the lesson is....always look again....and sometimes look with your hands.

Sorry to put you through all that...but I needed to tell the WHOLE story about the mystery piece. And I decided it was OK to write about Underserved Hoopla.