Quinn Dombrowski
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quinnanya.me
Quinn Dombrowski
@quinnanya.me
Multilingual digital humanities, founder of the Textile Makerspace at Stanford & the Data-Sitters Club, teaches data visualization with textiles. SUCHO 🇺🇦 co-founder, archiving at-risk cultural heritage. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Signal: quinnanya.823
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Hi, I'm Quinn, I run a Textile Makerspace and teach data visualization with textiles at Stanford, in a weird job between the library and non-English literatures. I post a lot of fun textile things via #DHmakes, along with digital humanities text analysis stuff, including the Data-Sitters Club.
The Data-Sitters Club Books
Check out our main series and our multilingual mystery series! Feeling lost? Check out our index of book topics, tools, mistakes, and more! Main series:,,, DSC #1 Quinn's Great Idea, DSC #2 Katia a...
datasittersclub.github.io
The new fountains throughout Berkeley add an exciting element to any trip outside.
January 6, 2026 at 2:18 AM
A beautiful and thought-provoking writeup of a prize-winning protest quilt. Art can draw on on cultural context that's (mercifully) not universal. Maybe it's the day I'm having but I choked up on the last line: "Ginny Robinson also makes joyful quilts." #DHmakes
This Kottke short links to a longer article about the reaction to the quilt which is very interesting. www.quiltfolk.com/journal/one-...
January 6, 2026 at 2:14 AM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
I saw someone refer to this as "pebbling", I think after penguins bringing one another small pebbles maybe as gifts? Little "this made me think of you / something you'd like / something I learned from you"
January 6, 2026 at 12:49 AM
I put a lot of thought into how to model these power dynamics / moves for the #DHRPG. (With an extremely good roll, power could flow in the opposite direction too, e.g. through student newspaper articles!)

And yet -- even when offered explicitly -- no player in power has ever chosen to use it. ❤️
Someone should really write like... professor power analysis 101. It could explain that when you have power over someone's future you also have an obligation of care.

And that's true even if you are tortured by insecurity and believe in your heart that you are an underdog.
January 6, 2026 at 12:12 AM
This is a really lovely practice, and if you're looking for an easy New Year's resolution to make these times a little bit brighter, this one is solid.
One of my old friends (absolutely offline) was going through some scary stuff last year -- and I, helpless, live so far away. And so I asked what I could do to support her best.

"When you see something that makes you think of me, text me."
January 6, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Occasional funky stitching on antique quilt piece.

“Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, troubadours, for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.”
—-Jacob Norby

#artquilt #imperfection #slowstitch #quiltsky #joy #weird
January 5, 2026 at 12:21 PM
Rain has canceled my elaborate plans for the kids' one day with my father during his visit, so we're doing an indoor cultural exchange: watching "Old Yeller" in the morning and "K-Pop Demon Hunters" in the afternoon.
January 4, 2026 at 5:56 PM
When doing a knitting machine project, be sure to budget extra time for exasperation, potentially verging on despair. #DHmakes
I used one for work in a costume shop and on more than one occasion, I just had to get up, walk away, and do something else for the rest of the afternoon.
January 4, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Started the "Magica Riot: Full Bloom" audiobook in the car yesterday with the tween and my father, and I gotta hand it to @magicariot.com: I heard even the 70-year-old retired army pilot/marketing guy who won't be bothered with anyone's pronouns chuckling & enjoying it along with the tween.
January 4, 2026 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
Here it is! All of my sleep/insomnia visualized for 2025. One Z for each night. The thread colors represent the amount of sleep while the beads signify types of wakefulness. All tracked and coded manually in my sleep journal and stitched over the course of the year. #DHmakes
January 3, 2026 at 12:39 AM
I love digital knitting machines boy are they great. 🫠

I'm really trying to make this the year of the knitting machine, like I've successfully done for weaving and embroidery, but neither of those came with quite so much baggage in previously dashed hopes.

#DHmakes
January 4, 2026 at 2:39 AM
Et tu, Kiki? Whatever pleasure there is in sitting on my weaving on the loom, it's not worth giving up your position as the Good Cat. #DHmakes
January 3, 2026 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
not now, Moby Dick bot
But none of us are in heaven yet.
January 3, 2026 at 7:49 AM
We have had a little talk about where Fry's butt should be located relative to my loom. 🤨 #DHmakes
January 3, 2026 at 6:29 AM
I am up in yr loom, fixin yr tension. #DHmakes
January 2, 2026 at 7:53 AM
10 months of data successfully woven for this scarf. It's satisfying to just weave row after row. #DHmakes
January 2, 2026 at 4:39 AM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
If I ever become someone important or important-adjacent, the New York Post can look up the prices of the yarn I use in my handmade clothing and kvetch about that. Good quality materials are not cheap, even before you get to fairly paying for labor.
January 1, 2026 at 6:32 PM
I would love 2026 to be a year of excellent artisinal craftwork headgear. #DHmakes
maybe i should make a set of patchwork witch hats so i can wear them year round. gotta add mesh vents to the summer ones tho
January 1, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Essential thread for anyone with precious words, pictures, or digital nostalgia on LiveJournal, including some pointers for how to go about archiving those things.

If you're having trouble with the tech side of archiving, please reach out. I've been down this road w/ friends who maybe can help.
I do not, to my very great sorrow, think LJ will survive in anything resembling even its "hollowed-out shell of what it used to be" current form for much longer. And I hate what it's become, but I'll cry when it dies, because it shaped SO MUCH of my life.
January 1, 2026 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
December 8, 2025 at 8:41 PM
The month-long home feelings loom proof-of-concept was a success, though I got some good feedback from the kids about how to revise the feelings taxonomy. #DHmakes
January 1, 2026 at 12:35 AM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
Anyway I’ve seen a lot of entirely justified cursing of the dying year going on this year and… perhaps we can start to bend the arc on the everything, if we stop cursing things that we can’t change and look forward with hope together?
December 31, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Letterpress #DHmakes friends, a good idea! 🥰
I want to print YOU DON'T GET GOOD AT A THING BY NOT DOING IT onto little cards and just hand them out in conversation sometimes
D1) again, this is difficult to pull off at longer lengths. But you don't get good at a thing by not doing it.

E) YOU DON'T GET GOOD AT A THING BY NOT DOING IT done is better than perfect. Don't worry so much about "practicing right" just practice. You can adjust as you need as you go on.
December 31, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Me: *sets oven to 375*

Tween: Huh, it's only 4:15?

Me: No, it's after 6, why?

Tween: Oh, I saw it on the oven.

Me:... What? That's the temperature.

Tween: Huh, I thought you'd just set it to military time or something.

Me: Um, good math and interesting theory but that's not how that works. 🤔
December 31, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Finally seizing the moment to watch Heated Rivalry, and I'd missed in the discourse that Ilya is Russian-Russian, and Connor Storrie had no background with the language.

Gotta tip my former Slavist hat to him for putting it the work to do a bang-up job on that dialogue. 🎩
December 30, 2025 at 10:40 PM