Author

Greta Lindholm

Hi, I'm Greta — come walk the trail with me.

I'm Greta Lindholm: former park ranger, lifelong crocheter, plant-dye gardener, and the maker behind Pin & Pine.

I learned to look closely at two tables. The first was my Mormor's kitchen table in Tacoma — she was a Swedish immigrant who taught me crochet in the tradition of slöjd, the Scandinavian handcraft philosophy that making useful, beautiful things slowly and with care isn't a hobby, it's a way of living. Her motto hangs over my desk and closes every post I write: slow hands, long thoughts.

The second table was the forest floor. I spent eighteen years as a park ranger and environmental educator with Washington State Parks — leading forest walks, teaching kids to tell a chanterelle's gills from a false chanterelle's, and learning, season after season, how much there is to see when you slow down enough to notice.

For most of my life those two tables stayed separate. Then, in 2016, they collided: I needed teaching props for a kids' mushroom program, so I crocheted a chanterelle — a correct one, gills and all. The kids went absolutely feral for it. So I made a Douglas squirrel with the proper ear tufts. Then a chickadee. Before long, rangers from other parks were asking for my patterns, and in 2019, Pin & Pine was born to share them. In 2022, after eighteen years in uniform, I traded one forest job for another and made this my full-time work.

Here's what you'll find on this trail:


Patterns that teach twice. Every design opens with real field notes about the species — make my chanterelle and you'll also learn to recognize one on the trail. The craft carries the nature lesson, just like my ranger props did.
Species accuracy. Ear tufts, wing bars, gill shapes — checked against field guides and eighteen years of field time. Stylized is fine; wrong gets frogged.
Field-tested, honestly rated. Patterns survive kids' programs, backpack trips, and my border collie Juniper before they're published — and "this took me three evenings" is stated as a feature, not a confession.
Fiber honesty. I love natural fibers and hand-dye my own yarn with plants from my garden, and I'll tell you the real trade-offs — cost, care, washability — with budget and acrylic alternatives every time. The best yarn is the one you'll actually use.
Safety and ethics, always. Mordant safety in every dye tutorial, embroidered eyes for the under-3s, and ethical foraging rules stated every single time: take little, know the rules, never harvest what you can't confidently identify.


These days I make, dye, photograph, and write from a cedar-shingled house at the wooded edge of Olympia, Washington, where a trail into the pines starts just past our fence. I share it with my husband Erik (biology teacher, sauna builder), our teenagers Freja and Nils (quality-control department, brutally honest), and Juniper, who attends every yarn photoshoot uninvited. Most weeks you'll find me on a "notice walk" with no destination, tending my dye garden's ongoing negotiations with the woad, or running the free kids' craft-and-nature hour at our library — a ranger never fully retires.

Whether you're here to crochet your first forest creature, dye your first skein with marigolds, or just walk slowly through the seasons with me — welcome. There's plenty of time.

Slow hands, long thoughts,
Greta 🌲