51dc1d9732
Refer to the CHANGELOG for all info. --------- Co-authored-by: Wouter van Wageningen <wouter.vdub@yahoo.com> Co-authored-by: Josh Munic <jpmunic@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Jonathan Haas <haasjona@gmail.com>
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4.8 KiB
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100 lines
4.8 KiB
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authors: 1
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caption: "A photo by <a href='https://unsplash.com/@onevagabond'>Paulo Silva</a> shows an empty Times Square in New York during the COVID pandemic"
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date: '2021-01-10'
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intro: "Aren't we all glad 2020 is over?"
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title: 'The year 2020 was something alright'
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---
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Aren't we all glad 2020 is over?
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Realistically, at least some of you, or your loved ones, got caught in the
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absolute gut-punch that is the COVID-19 pandemic. Either indirectly through
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lost income or other practical concerns, or directly by battling the virus
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itself.
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<!-- truncate -->
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I can only offer my sympathy, and the belief that things will get better. So
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hang in there, and let me briefly take your mind of things by sharing some good
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news against the bleak backdrop of the annus horribilis that 2020 turned out to
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be.
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##### The face mask tsunami
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FreeSewing found itself — absolutely unexpected I might add — under the glaring
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spotlight of international media this year. A tidal wave of attention rolled
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over us, and while the peak lasted only a good month, the repercussions and
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long tail of these events have shaped our entire year.
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It all started in February when COVID-19 was starting to rear its ugly head in
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Europe and the supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) started
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dwindling. It seemed that face masks were going to be a big factor in trying to
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slow down the spread of this disease, but they were getting harder to come by
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every day.
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So on February 28th, after some design and experimentation, we [published our
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face mask pattern on freesewing.org](/blog/florence-face-mask/). Three weeks
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later, we followed up with [a one-page PDF that people could share and
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adapt](/blog/facemask-frenzy/).
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We did not really want to be in the center of this, we just wanted to help
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people make masks. But when [Forbes ran an editorial calling on people to help
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out with the healthcare workers PPE
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shortage](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2020/03/20/calling-all-people-who-sew-and-make-you-can-help-solve-2020-n95-type-mask-shortage/),
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we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a gigantic spotlight. The article
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prominently featured FreeSewing, and linked to [our blog
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post](/blog/facemask-frenzy).
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At that time, there were few patterns available for face masks, and soon enough
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a long list of other publications started running links to our pattern and
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website. When I found [the instruction video that I made for the pattern
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staring back at me on the website of the New York
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Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-n95-mask.html),
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it was a veritable oh-crap moment. Sure enough, in the month following the
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Forbes publication, a million people descended on freesewing.org.
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The sudden jump in visitors and users (not to mention patrons) made it clear
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that I am a bottleneck of the project, and so in the latter half of the year
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we've set out to [try and remedy that with some community
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building](/blog/a-call-for-help/). On one hand it's slow going, but on the
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other hand if I look at how vibrant the FreeSewing community is today, it
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almost beggars belief that we did all of this throughout 2020. We now have
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regular [contributor
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calls](https://github.com/freesewing/freesewing/discussions), and [our chat
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rooms are never empty](https://discord.freesewing.org/).
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I hope to continue to fade into the background and let other people carry some
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of the torches. Not because I don't want to work on this anymore, but because I
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want to grow FreeSewing beyond what I can do on my own.
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##### Black Lives Matter Since this is a look at 2020, I also want to pause and
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acknowledge the **Black Lives Matter** movement and the ongoing problem of
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systemic racism. It is an area where my background and genetic material makes
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me ill-equipped to take a leading role, so here too I rely on our community for
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guidance.
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We are also expanding our efforts to provide patterns that work for all body
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types, and I am particularly proud of how many of our users come to us because
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our patterns help them project the gender of their choice.
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##### We helped more people than ever this year On the practical side of
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things, I have extended our book year with a couple of weeks so that going
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forward, we will just follow the calendar years. With a couple of hours left in
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this year, FreeSewing's revenue for 2020 clocks in at **10.736,82 euro**. That
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makes 2020 and absolute bumper year, and it's more than all previous years
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combined (2015: € 256.65, 2016: € 473.50, 2017: € 673.14, 2018: € 3162.14,
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2019: € 4109.38).
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As always, all of FreeSewing's revenue -- the entire 10.736,82 euro -- [goes to
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Doctors Without Borders](/docs/about/pledge/).
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I am truly grateful for your continued support and contributions. I feel like
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in a very small way, we are able to apply some balm to the hurt that seems at
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times omnipresent in the world.
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Thank you so much, and stay safe
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love joost
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