Four Cups

 Chag sameach! If you're reading this within a few hours of when I'm posting it, I am currently at my family's seder (or doing the mountain of dishes produced by my family's seder). Passover is one of the biggest holidays in my family, and since this is the first Passover since I started constructing, I had to make a puzzle for it. This also means that I had the brilliant idea to make my first oversized puzzle in about a day while traveling home for Passover. That said, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, and given that most of this was clued while waiting out a flight delay, hopefully you'll forgive (or even appreciate?) the two Crazy Ex-Girlfriend clues.

Puz file | Direct link

It's All Falling Apart!

 

Yes, this sock I made did require 16 different strands of yarn

Welcome back to A Crossword Rose, where I have something special today--my first ever NYT submission, which, as is so often the case, became my first ever NYT rejection. I shopped it around a little bit and got some really great feedback from editors, but it's been long enough that I think it's time to post this one.

I made this puzzle last August, based on a theme I had over a year ago (before I even started constructing) when I was knitting a ton of socks (see photo). I've updated and livened up a small handful of clues, but otherwise, this is pretty much what I sent in then, so the clues probably are much closer to a mainstream style than this blog's normal absolute nonsense quality content. You may also notice that this grid was made before I learned to make a grid with an "appropriate" number of black squares or 3-letter entries, but honestly, I love the fill enough that I don't think that matters.

Puz file | Direct Crosshare Link

Magical Realism

And welcome back to something that, despite today's date, is much more conventional than my post from a few days ago! In fact, this one is conventional enough that it was the first theme idea I ever tried to make--by which I mean I spent about 15 minutes in February 2020 fumbling around with the trial version of Crossfire and a much worse version of this theme before I decided that this whole construction thing was just too hard. Two years later, I present you with what I hope is an actually fun version of the puzzle--it's lightly themed and hopefully not too tricky but still with plenty of my own personality in the clues. (You all know your Rent lyrics, right?)

Anyways, the real reason I'm posting this puzzle now is that I'm headed out to ACPT in a few hours! For those of you reading this before ACPT who will be attending, come say hi! I promise not to be too awkward. (Note: I may or may not be able to keep this promise.) And if any of you found this blog because you were introduced to it/indie puzzles in general at ACPT, welcome! I think this puzzle is a pretty good encapsulation of what I try to do here, so if you like it, please check out the rest of this blog or my "other puzzles" page, which has links to my published puzzles and some absolutely top notch off-blog collabs.

Thanks to Kelsey for test solving!

Direct Crosshare link | Puz file