A Belated New Year’s Post

I mean, really belated. It’s already the end of March and my main focus this year has been undermining our fascist government. ✌️ Oh, and I changed positions at work at the end of last August, and that has significantly amped up my workload, but I like it.

Fortunately for me, I’ve accomplished quite a bit, especially considering my last post was nearly a year ago – May 17, 2024.

First and foremost, I’ve been working on my biggest cross stitch project ever. I had many finishes before the end of 2024 and dove into 2025 deciding to focus on my full coverage. That is Addie’s Window, artwork by Scott Gustafson, charted by Heaven & Earth Designs (HAED) (max colors). I’m stitching this one over one on 25-count Easy Grid Lugana (a change from Aida for me), and I think it’s coming along pretty well with 2 pages (out of 72) completed:

 

Since this is my focus piece, I work on it daily. My goal is to complete one page per month (or eighteen 10×10 squares per week), with an intended finish date of December 2030.

This is a piece for my daughter, who graduates high school in May 2031. Yes, that’s a long way off but this is a reasonable rate of completion to get it done in five years and also get it professionally framed. The piece really captures the essence of my daughter from ages 9 through now – how much she loves books, dragons, and nature – so it’s going to be quite nostalgic at that point. I might even re-chart the name because there is a book bag that says “ADDIE” in the piece. We’ll see how adventurous I get.

I’m not a fan of HAEDs for a variety of reasons (they don’t appear to be charted by hand because there’s random confetti; they also do AI-generated charts now, and AI “art” is stealing IMO). But this one is by a legitimate artist and it spoke to me. The same goes for one other chart, A Stitching Shelf by Amy Stewart. When I complete Addie’s Window, I’ll start A Stitching Shelf. It’s another piece that feels meaningful, because I learned cross-stitching from my Nana, and her Nana (my great-great grandmother) was remembered as “a wonderful sewer” by her daughters. In Italy, my Nana’s great-grandmother was a “filatrice” or spinner, so working in fiber crafts is something that has been passed along my maternal line.

I also have a smaller lunch break/car stitching project, which is Haunted Store by Cross-Stitch Curiosity, which I’m stitching on an 18-count navy Aida. It’s super cute with its vibrant colors:

At first, I was also making this for my daughter, but my husband and I both like it too. So I guess it’ll end up on the living room wall when it’s done! My goal is to complete it by the end of September of this year. If it was my focus piece, I would already be done with it, but I may give it some extra attention in July and August. Once I finish Haunted Store, I’ll turn my attention to Mother’s Tree by Lavender & Lace.

I started the year off with some fantastic genealogical finds, because I spent a lot of time on Antenati looking for records. With a little patience, I finally found several items, starting with the death records of my third great-grandparents, the parents of my great-great grandfather Bartolomeo Giovanni Michele Galfré. 

Bartlomeo’s mother, Francesca Manassero, died in Cuneo in 1886. I also found the death record of her mother, Teresa Cavallo, in Spinetta in 1884. That record named Teresa’s parents, adding another branch to the tree.

Bartolomeo’s father, Michele Galfré, died in Tarantasca in 1905. I also found his second marriage in Tarantasca in 1886, a few months after Francesca’s death. Death records for both of Michele’s parents were found in Cuneo – 1872 for his father and 1873 for his mother. Once again, that allowed me to add another set of names, since their death records listed their parents. That is also how I learned that no, my great-great grandpa Bartolomeo’s parents did not come from France. Nor did his grandparents or even his great-grandparents.

The Galfré family came from Boves, Italy, at least as far as Bartolomeo’s great-grandparents’ generation, which is a town (or comune) in Cuneo. One of my DNA matches also comes from there and I when I expanded that match’s family tree, I found that we connected through shared Galfré ancestors. I didn’t expect that was where we would connect, but it was good to have the confirmation. Boves was, sadly, the site of a massacre by Nazis in 1943.

That’s a sad way to end this, but there’s really not any way to sugar-coat Nazi activity, then or now. I’ll try to post monthly with cross-stitch and genealogy updates. Take care of yourself and those who need it. 💙