Threads of Teton Valley
Upon walking into Pine Needle Embroidery on Driggs’ West Little Avenue, visitors see cubbies filled with colorful ball caps in a variety of styles and brands, reaching high up the wall. Racks of clothing fill the front room, which serves as a retail space.
But the main buzz of activity is just beyond the retail space. Here, surrounded by a rainbow of brightly-hued thread spools, a team of seven work with their machines humming: designing and digitizing logos, sewing or printing them onto an array of products, then trimming and packaging orders to ship around the world.
Gore-Tex jackets awaiting logos, backpacks with students’ names embroidered in bright pink and purple thread, monogrammed stockings for locals, branded gear for businesses, and custom orders for big-name clients across the globe—the products run the gamut.
Pine Needle Embroidery works with clients in places like London, Mumbai, Luxembourg, and New York City, as well as outdoor outfitters like the Jackson Hole-based technical apparel company Stio, and plenty of regional organizations, from Grand Targhee Resort to the U.S. Forest Service.
“I love the creativeness of it; that’s really fun,” says owner Lisa Foster. “And I love working with the people. That’s really the fun part because I love my crew.”
Pine Needle Embroidery was opened by Linda Naef in 2004, and Lisa found herself working there in 2014, albeit a bit unexpectedly. Lisa’s husband was EMS director for Fremont County at the time, and he had ordered some customized work items from the shop. Lisa swung by to collect them and serendipity struck.
“I went in to pick up the order and we started to talk,” Lisa says. “Linda was not looking for help at the time, but she said she just had a good feeling, so she hired me.”
Lisa says her role was originally intended to be part-time, but they were gaining more clients, and orders kept coming in rapidly, so she began working more and more. Soon, she had learned how to do everything, from using all the machines to getting to know the clientele. In 2020, Lisa purchased Pine Needle Embroidery from Linda, who passed away in 2022.
Business kept growing, and Lisa was on track for a record year in 2023 when she faced a devastating setback. Late one night that July, a fire engulfed the embroidery shop, which was then tucked away in a Victor neighborhood on Aspen Street. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the shop suffered a total loss.
“After the fire, we thought maybe some of it would survive, but no,” Lisa says, explaining that it took more than a month to even be able to access the building, which had amassed substantial damage. The roof had to be shored up before anyone could go inside, so the waiting time compounded the destruction. “What we didn’t lose to fire, we lost to smoke damage. And what we didn’t lose to smoke damage, we lost to water damage,” she says.
After the fire, Lisa needed to find a new space for Pine Needle Embroidery. Initially, she wanted to stay in Victor for its proximity to Jackson and her clients there, but she ended up finding a space in Driggs’ Depot Square. This new mixed-use building is just off the main intersection, affording greater visibility than the business had before. They moved into the new location in late 2023.
The business is still growing at speed. When Linda founded the company more than twenty years ago, she started with one single-head sewing machine (a head refers to the components of the sewing machine responsible for the stitching). Over the years, the company slowly acquired additional machines with up to six heads each, and had a total of fifteen heads by the time of the fire. Now, they have sixteen heads, and Lisa is looking to eventually add more.
Lisa also plans to expand the shop’s retail space, but the volume of custom orders they receive is keeping her team very busy for now. She tries to do everything she can for her customers, who quickly become her friends, and she finds that personal touch to be key.
“I love my clients,” Lisa says, “and I really like establishing personal friendships with them.”
