2020 Year in Review

Well.

That certainly was a year, wasn’t it?

I hope to never see another like—but so far, it seems like 2021 is giving it some stiff competition.

At least we have a glimmer of hope from the vaccine and the inauguration of new, functional adult president.

I hope you found some bright spots last year—more time with the people in your household, less commuting, maybe more knitting?

Here, we just did our best to hold things together.

JJ has been navigating Zoom school fairly successfully. Ollie was so miserable I had to withdraw him from school and start homeschooling. We thought a puppy would liven things up—and we weren’t wrong, but she’s perhaps a little more lively (read: bitey) than we bargained for.

Find Thistle on Instagram @thistletheheeler

We were, thankfully, still able to take our annual beach vacation—with some modifications, obviously. Of course, our annual Rhinebeck trip was scrapped, and my milestone birthday celebration wasn’t quite the big bash I might have otherwise had.

I’ve tackled a few home improvement projects, most notably scraping alllllll the paint off our fireplace.

Before

After!

Next up: painting the rest of the room!

So, amidst all that, how did MediaPeruana Designs fair?

I’ll admit, doing the post-year numbers is something I enjoy, which seems odd for someone who never took much pleasure in math class.

Maybe it’s the magic of Excel spreadsheets.

At any rate, I have some interesting numbers to share, depending on your interpretation of the word interesting.

My total income and total profit both jumped about $1,000 over the previous year—yay, but not enough to keep the business afloat, sadly. I actually sold fewer indie patterns than in 2019, so that income bump came primarily from third-party publications (Interweave Knits, Knitscene), as well as efforts to reduce my overhead costs and business expenses.

I published 14 brand new patterns, plus added sizes to a fair few sweaters. This bumped up my tech editing costs but didn’t appreciably increase my pattern sales, with the possible exception of Dziadzi (Ravelry link), which was re-released with sizes, shaping and instructions for both men and women.

I also recorded 19 new podcast episodes as well as 13 new knitting tutorials, including the 6 that were part of my Knitting 101 series. I gained 277 YouTube subscribers in 2020, so my little channel is growing, slowly but surely.

And I donated a total of $360 to these organizations thanks to your pattern purchases: RAICES, Black Lives Matter DC, Campaign Zero, Baltimore Action Legal Team, Immigration Equality and the Maryland Food Bank.

You can check out the latest episode of the podcast for a review of my finished personal knits (a pitiful 4) and a glimpse of all the new patterns published last year!

So. How was your 2020?