Quinn Dombrowski
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quinnanya.me
Quinn Dombrowski
@quinnanya.me
4.2K followers 2.1K following 4.9K posts
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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quinnanya.me
Quinn Dombrowski @quinnanya.me · Nov 10
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
quinnanya.me
Adorable ancient little guy alert! 🦔 #DHmakes
oregonthedm.bsky.social Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 3d
Part 218 of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg dnd

Ceramic hedgehog dated to the Neolithic period found at the Hamin archaeological site near Shebotu Town in Inner Mongolia, China
Shocked Stone headgehog
November 22, 2025 at 4:30 AM
quinnanya.me
I love this interview and the parallels between what he discovered as a historian making a thing and realizing all the little decisions a weaver makes in the process, and all the many things DH staff know about doing projects that just don't get written into the record of scholarship. #DHmakes
November 22, 2025 at 3:58 AM
quinnanya.me
A thread to read on a Friday, whether your art is writing or any other kind of creating. #DHmakes
delilahsdawson.bsky.social Delilah S. Dawson @delilahsdawson.bsky.social · 5d
This is why you have to love the work. When publishing and fortune kick you in the face, the page will still be there for you. When all you get are nos, the story will be your yes. You can't count on sales or marketing money, but you can count on the feeling of flow, of creation, the joy of art.
November 21, 2025 at 6:08 PM
quinnanya.me
Sitting down to assemble the syllabus for the 2026 #DHRPG and... wow, in 2024 I didn't mince words about how doing a digital project well was harder than ever due to systemic problems and constraints. And that was back when federal grant programs still existed! 🫠
Screenshot with the following text: "Introduction The last time this class was taught was winter 2020, and the last session – and the all-important final dice rolls for the RPG component – took place on Zoom. Where last time the class was framed as simply “project management and ethical collaboration”, it is impossible to attempt the same now, without acknowledging the ongoing instability and uncertainty that shape a world in which we continue to do projects and collaborate, even though the rules, expectations, and needs around us keep changing in ways that have a meaningful impact on the people and even the materials we work with. From the COVID-19 pandemic and its regular aftershocks, to institutions navigating “return-to-office” policies and how that intersects with precarious labor conditions, to devastating wars that have upended lives on-site and in diasporas, to the anxiety and possibilities unleashed by AI, to cyberattacks that have destroyed key cultural heritage infrastructures, to the challenges of aligning work with ever-changing university priorities, doing a collaborative digital project is hard in ways that were less prominent before. In this class, we will grapple with all the pieces of doing a collaborative, digital scholarship project that aren’t technical (though we may touch on some technical bits as well). For the person running a project, these issues can easily take up most of their time working on the project. It’s not what gets people excited about the project – it’s administration, not scholarship as such – but it’s important to approach it with thought and care in order to have a project that runs in a way that you can feel good about, regardless of the tangible outcome. To accomplish this, we will be learning about project management and ethical collaboration through readings and in-class discussion, but more importantly, we will actually be trying to put these concepts into practice."
November 21, 2025 at 6:04 PM
quinnanya.me
This is incredibly delightful, down to the very end that notes "As a government work, to the extent provided by all
relevant law this module is to be considered as existing
within the public domain."

I may need to sort out a way to play this.

More government works like this please. 🙏🏻
brandonseifert.info Brandonomicon (Brandon Seifert) @brandonseifert.info · 4d
"Before I left the NYC Conflicts of Interest Board back in 2022, I created (along with Dan Iwrey and Rob Casimir) what might be the greatest municipal ethics-law-based D&D one-shot module ever conceived… or at the very least the ONLY municipal ethics-law-based D&D one-shot module ever conceived."
www.nyc.gov
November 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM
quinnanya.me
Started the day helping second graders weave. Over the break I'm going to gather some redwood bark, laser cut the words of their class pledge into the pieces, and help them weave the data from a survey of which parts of the pledge they lived out. #DHmakes
Second graders weaving on cardboard looms A bright red and black feathers weaving by a second grader A weaving mostly in shades of white by a second grader
November 21, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
patrickjohanneson.com
8675309 is prime, and so is 8675311, so if you ever need a middlin'-large pair of adjacent primes to test your cryptographic suite, all you need is a 1980s earworm and a +2 and you're all set.
colindickey.com Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 4d
Man, everything is so bleak, anyone got a fun fact or little bit of trivia they want to share
November 21, 2025 at 3:28 AM
quinnanya.me
#DHmakes 💀💟
caroleeena.bsky.social Caroleeena @caroleeena.bsky.social · 5d
Artist: Ben Cuevas
(Yes, this an entire knitted skeleton. Look at the detail!?!)
November 20, 2025 at 6:12 PM
quinnanya.me
I foresee more fodder for letterpress printing, textual knitting, and other such delights. 😈 #DHmakes
walshbr.bsky.social Boorandoom Wailsh @walshbr.bsky.social · 4d
"hand-crafted adversarial poetry" is a concept I will think about for a long time.
November 20, 2025 at 5:52 PM
quinnanya.me
Happy publication day to possibly my favorite book chapter I've ever written, "Stop Lying to Yourself: Collective Delusion and Digital Humanities Grant Funding"!

Ever notice how once you get one grant, you end up looking for another & do things you never actually wanted? Yeah. It's about that. 🪰🕷️🐴
November 20, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
literaturegeek.bsky.social
It's 120pt(!) Cooper Black with diagonal striping that can connect to the bit trailing off a ball-of-yarn image block (for @quinnanya.me's YarnLab). Recutting tomorrow, but I guess this allows printing a neat reflected letters effect alongside the legible version? #DHmakes
Photo of lasercut frosted and clear red acrylic movable type, using a 120pt Cooper Black font where done if the letters have a diagonal striping effect added to match the width of the yarn coming off the yarn ball in a corresponding image printing block. The text says "YarnLab" but has been accidentally lasercut right-reading, messing it will print backwards Side photo of lasercut frosted and clear red acrylic movable type, using a 120pt Cooper Black font where done if the letters have a diagonal striping effect added to match the width of the yarn coming off the yarn ball in a corresponding image printing block. The text says "YarnLab" but has been accidentally lasercut right-reading, messing it will print backwards. This version of the photo shows the frosted clear acrylic layers the type is mounted on.
November 19, 2025 at 10:08 PM
quinnanya.me
Tomorrow is "321 Plays for Trans Futures" in Chicago, so here's my contribution, part of the evening "Futures" segment. They're words I had to write before I could have a prayer of focusing on syllabus prep, on March 28, 2024. It's about the first time all the discourse of bodies made sense to me.
Six Minutes - Quinn Dombrowski
[/assets/images/header_swimsuit.jpg] https://www.quinndombrowski.com/blog/2025/11/19/six-minutes/ (Tomorrow is 321 Plays for Trans Futures [https://morrism.notion.site/321-Plays-for-Trans-Futures-2...
quinndombrowski.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:53 PM
quinnanya.me
The most special occasions deserve #DHbakes. 🖤🔪 #DHmakes
amandamadden.bsky.social Amanda Madden @amandamadden.bsky.social · 7d
I ordered a cake to celebrate my book launch. It turned out kinda epic. 😆
November 19, 2025 at 4:47 PM
quinnanya.me
Just to be clear, I give five stars to Roopsi's Divorce Recommendation Advice Service and would refer a friend or colleague. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
roopikarisam.bsky.social Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 6d
Best out of context Roopsi text of the day: “I have already been responsible for one divorce in this group chat so I’m gonna let someone else be responsible for yours.”
November 18, 2025 at 9:50 PM
quinnanya.me
Spent late last night and early this morning redistributing texsolv heddles so I can weave something wider for my next piece on the office floor loom. Screwing up a few times gave me the chance to take a bunch off and practice some more. 🫠 #DHmakes
A large floor loom with lots of texsolv heddles
November 18, 2025 at 4:57 PM
quinnanya.me
Bringing #DHmakes to the local second grader's class today! I worked with their teacher for each kid to mark one thing from their class pledge that they did each day last week. Each kid will have their own weaving (data or otherwise) project & they'll weave class pledge data together.
A piece of butcher paper with 11 values and how kids are going to enact them, written in different colors Yarn cut into long pieces, hanging over a table in a colorful classroom A cardboard loom with three different yarns on it
November 17, 2025 at 10:25 PM
quinnanya.me
Finally caught up on my 6-week backlog, embroidering data about the people (adults) I see every day. Got on a roll with it and stayed up until 3 AM on Saturday night to get through a month of it! #DHmakes
An embroidery on blue tie dye fabric in a spiral shape with different color stitches
November 17, 2025 at 5:28 PM
quinnanya.me
Sometimes you've just got to say it in yarn. #DHmakes
jnswndlf.com Jens Windolf @jnswndlf.com · 8d
My daughter gave me a piece of art. A knitted strip spells out a blunt German phrase, pairing handmade warmth with abrasive candor. An object that challenges whether craft must ever be polite.

#knitart #textilemessage #germanphrases #artifacts #visualculture #handmadedesign
Conceptual view of a handmade knitted strip carrying bold, confrontational wording. It says „Ein Kopf und ein Arsch“ („A head and an arse“). It says the same like „One heart and one soul.“
November 16, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
megsmith.bsky.social
I’m well beyond “why apply,” I’m at “I cannot in good conscience apply.”

Gift link to the NYT piece on the NEH’s awarded projects since it was gutted:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/a...
The concluding paragraphs of an article from the NYT on the current funding habits of the NEH. “A majority of the awards, which the agency has not publicized, are to scholars with ties to religious or conservative institutions, and support work on topics including the Bible's influence on the American founders, the history of the parental rights movement and the current ills of the humanities. Four are to people listed only as "unaffiliated independent scholar." Some of the agency's longstanding competitive grant programs remain. But Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and medical historian who served on the council from 2022 until she was fired October, said there had been a "chilling effect." "I know scholars who, seeing what has happened, are asking, why apply?" Dr. Gamble said. "The N.E.H. does not seem as open to a larger swath of humanities anymore."”
November 16, 2025 at 12:28 AM
quinnanya.me
Art and archiving in action. #DHmakes
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 9d
This is a 52-pound 9000+ page accordion-bound artist’s book of Donald Trump’s lies, conceived, printed, and bound by Jill and Ray Nichols of @leadgraffiti.bsky.social in Delaware. Each of the 9000 pages has the text (per the Washington Post) of one or more of Trump’s lies; none are repeated.
The 9000-page 52-pound book, entitled LIAR, LIAR, on display today at the University of Maryland. Sample interior page. Front of a postcard describing the project. Photo of postcard describing project: “9,296 pages document 3o,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump from his first day in office, 2017, to his final day on January 20, 2020, when Joe Biden was sworn in as the country's next president. All that verbiage is s3" thick, weighs 52 pounds, and it started like this. The disolution of the Delaware College of Art & Design, to whom Lead Graffti had donated 1oos of design books over the past decade, brought an invitation to redaim them. We found a few, which brought us another interesting find — a blank Coppic-stitched book with a spine about 36 inches wide bound by Ema Ishii Holdredge for her BEA show at the Corcoran School of Art in 2008. That book haunted us for several weeks, and we decided it was too audacious not to give ita Lead Graffiti shot. For a while, we pondered how to fill a several thousand-page book with content that made a serious point. The notion of the presidential untruths came to mind, so maybe there was some documentation we could "borrow?" Sure enough, in a few Safari minutes, we found a downloadable PDE from The Washington Post that we could massage into a typographic form we could use. We were off. Ray undertook the ink-jet printing of the pages, folding and inserting the red cover-weight sheets for structural support, and gathering and punching the folds for sewing. Jill did 99.8% of the sewing. At a 3o2 United gathering, we encouraged attendees to give the book a stroke. Shown at right is the head of the Delaware ACLU, who has excellent technique. LEAD GRAFFITI | NEWARK, DELAWARE| LEADGRAFFITI.COM|RAY@LEADGRAIETTI.COM”
November 15, 2025 at 9:10 PM
quinnanya.me
This is the last #MTG shirt. I've been making my oldest kid clothes from this fabric since he was in early elementary school, and now he's turning 12 and wanted the new Avatar deck for his birthday. So the last scraps went into this shirt and it's the end of an era and I have feelings. #DHmakes
A t-shirt with mana symbols on tip, Magic the Gathering cards on bottom, and Avatar sleeves The Magic and Avatar shirt with a tabby cat with one blind eye sitting on it. This is how most of my attempts to get a picture of the shirt went.
November 15, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Quinn Dombrowski
walshbr.bsky.social
@quinnanya.me is such a treasure of a friend. Can't thank them enough for the time and energy they gave to something I shared so sheepishly. And live slacking with them during their long commute was such a pleasure.
quinnanya.me Quinn Dombrowski @quinnanya.me · 11d
Wrote a few words about virtually hanging out with @walshbr.bsky.social this week, by means of reading his book draft and sending him my reactions as I was reading. It really was one of the best parts of this week and you should try it with a friend.

(Also, his book is ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥!!)
Hanging Out with a Friend and their Manuscript
https://www.quinndombrowski.com/blog/2025/11/14/hanging-out-friend-manuscript/ A funny thing about academic life, and perhaps digital humanities in particular, is that you end up building solid frien...
quinndombrowski.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:05 PM
quinnanya.me
Wrote a few words about virtually hanging out with @walshbr.bsky.social this week, by means of reading his book draft and sending him my reactions as I was reading. It really was one of the best parts of this week and you should try it with a friend.

(Also, his book is ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥!!)
Hanging Out with a Friend and their Manuscript
https://www.quinndombrowski.com/blog/2025/11/14/hanging-out-friend-manuscript/ A funny thing about academic life, and perhaps digital humanities in particular, is that you end up building solid frien...
quinndombrowski.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM
quinnanya.me
Works on multiple levels! 🚫 #DHmakes
benmillett.us Ben Millett @benmillett.us · 11d
I wanna cut to the feeling…
Tiny white quilt with the words “Cancel your reservations” in purple and yellow seed stitch
November 14, 2025 at 4:09 AM
quinnanya.me
Tween: What are you cooking?

Me: Nothing, I made you a bagel...

Tween: But the stove is on. It's making that hiss sound.

Me:.... Have you forgotten what rain sounds like?? ☔

(This is the California child who, as a toddler, was confronted with a puddle in Seattle and called it "bath".)
November 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM