Fall 2018
The Textile Makerspace is a reimagining of the "Digital Humanities Lab", which in fall 2018 was full of with dead and dying computers and equipment for digitizing legacy media.
DLCL Academic Technology Specialist Quinn Dombrowski bought a couple sewing machines out-of-pocket, pushed the comptuers out of the way, and began inviting people to come create in the space starting in winter 2019.
DH-WoGeM 2019
After freeing up some more space by getting rid of the old computer equipment, the Textile Makerspace hosted a hands-on pre-conference workshop for the Text Technologies Women and Gender Minorities in DH event in May 2019.
February 2020
Even though it was only open during lunchtime a few days a week, the Textile Makerspace had a growing number of regular visitors after being featured in a Stanford News article on campus makerspaces.
That was February 2020. And then March 2020 happened.
Masquaraders
During 2020, the Textile Makerspace became a virtual hub for library staff participating in the "Masquaraders" project, sewing cloth masks with a filtration layer for frontline library staff who had to be on campus, before better-quality masks were widely available due to supply chain issues.
Animal Crossing: New Digital Humanities
During the mostly-virtual years of the pandemic, Quinn Dombrowski and Liz Grumbach ran a streaming digital humanities lecture series called Animal Crossing: New Digital Humanities, where people would virtually visit Quinn's Animal Crossing island and talk about their digital humanities work. The upstairs of Quinn's house, where various events were held, was a virtual Textile Makerspace.
2022 Renovation
In fall 2022, the Textile Makerspace was ready to reopen, reinvigorated by a donation from an anonymous alum that supported the purchase of an embroidery machine, button maker, knitting needles and crochet hooks, and other supplies to serve a wider range of interests. The whole space got a furniture makeover with help from staff at the TAPS Costume Shop and Stanford Surplus.
When the makerspace reopened, we started using the guestbook loom as an alternative form of metrics. We ask everyone who comes by to "sign in" with the yarn color corresponding to what has brought them in, and all visitors are welcome to use one or more colorful beads representing how they're feeling.
Student staffing
In December 2022, as part of a making@stanford grant to library makerspaces, the Textile Makerspace received funding for student staffing for the first time, enabling the space to be open five days a week, during more student-friendly afternoon and evening hours.
DLCL 203: Data Visualization with Textiles
In spring 2023, the Textile Makerspace hosted the first class of DLCL 203: Data Visualization with Textiles students. In this one-credit independent study, students can come by during any of the open hours of the makerspace to learn and practice textile method(s) with support from Textile Makerspace staff, and create a final project that incorporates data in some way.