5Questions for ...

Tricia Zielinski

Who are you? I’m Tricia Zielinski. I’m a Clifton Park resident, a wife, a mother and the owner of Embroidery & More. How did you get into this business? I started in October of 2008, at our first location over in The Crossing shopping plaza. We relocated here at 1712 Route 9 in October of 2012, in a shop we share with MovinAds Marketing & Signs, although we are two separate businesses. When I made that move, my business grew considerably.

For a decade, I was a cellphone retailer for a major company. My background was in sales and marketing. The world of corporate cellphone sales was changing very quickly, so I began to research businesses where I could bring the same customer base and my relationships with them into a new endeavor I could apply my skills and talents to. I bought an embroidery machine and set up this business myself. What sort of products do you offer? I have room at this new facility to stock lots of Shenendehowa and other local sports teams’ apparel. I have hats, golf shirts, sweats, totes, umbrellas, promotional items and even flip-flops. We do the same for businesses.

We incorporate a variety of processes that create a world of possibilities: screen printing, embroidery, ink to garment and heat transfers. We hope to expand into trophies and award plaques.

To give an idea of how tied to this community we are, recently many high school students asked us to embroider the team numbers of Chris Stewart and Deanna Rivers— two Shen students killed in a crash on the Northway— on a variety of apparel items. This is their way of holding their memory close. What do you do in your spare time? I’m also a sports enthusiast. My husband, Randy, and I have young sons and started a traveling baseball club for 10- and 11-year-old boys, called the Capital Renegades. I’m in charge of fundraising, bookkeeping, and the uniforms. I also run the concession stand at the games during the season, which runs from April to mid-October.

During the off-season, we run the Halfmoon Basketball League, which is for fifth- through eighth-grade boys. Why do you like crafting? I’ve always enjoyed doing crafts. My mother, Chris Hogan, has always been a big inspiration. She had a store in Clifton Park for many years called Precious Cargo, and when I was younger, I enjoyed the atmosphere of a retail location, and the relationships with customers that developed over the years.

My mother would go out shopping for something like curtains and turn to me to say, “I can do that.”

I followed her example. I have the ability to incorporate a successful business into the different portions of my life. She works with me now and we are at the point of needing experienced part-time help.

I had no experience in embroidery, but I had the desire to do it, and now I apply my creative eye to working with fonts and fabrics.

I guess you could say I’m painting with thread.