Sunny Bank Mills Christmas Market 2023

We meet some of the makers and creators at the Sunny Bank Mills Christmas Market in Farsley which runs until Sunday 26th November.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Fiona Gale, I'm the Communications Director at Zinnebent Mills in Farsley

00:04 and we're here for our annual Christmas market. We've got 59 makers and they are

00:11 here for Friday and Saturday and then on Sunday we completely change over again

00:15 so we've got another 59 makers coming in and they're all independent makers,

00:19 they're all handcrafted and beautiful work that you won't really get

00:25 in the high street for example. My name is Janet Brown and I describe myself as

00:30 a textile artist. I make maps, allotments and gardens from cotton and stitch. I've

00:40 been making work like this for about 15 years but prior to that I've always done

00:47 a lot of drawing and painting. My background is really more in drawing and

00:52 painting than textiles, it's evolved. I'm the owner of Twice Fired which is a

00:57 fused glass studio and so we've come this year, we've done the last few events

01:04 that they've had and they're absolutely brilliant. So this year we've got a

01:08 bigger stall and they've changed the layout to get even more sort of

01:12 creatives in which is fantastic. So I'm here with all our fused glass pieces so

01:18 we've got decorations, homeware and make at home fused glass kits. It's not just

01:23 the Christmas market that you see here, our gallery is open with a beautiful

01:27 exhibition in and our textile archive is open for visits, our studio holders so

01:33 our artist studios are open in both the spinning mill studio and the

01:37 twisting and then we've got independent businesses all around the mill.

01:41 Christmas is a strange time of year because I think I like the build-up to

01:46 it better than the actual day so I enjoy doing fairs like this at Sunnybank Mills

01:52 and it's particularly nice when people come and they buy something specifically

01:57 for a person because they recognise a little characteristic of someone in

02:02 there or maybe a little pet that they recognise. We're really really lucky to

02:06 actually live in Farsley so we've seen the changes that the mill has brought to

02:11 the village and when it first opened up I met Jane the gallery director and she

02:17 was just so full of different ideas and what they were going to do and I went

02:21 home absolutely buzzing like telling my husband have you heard the plans for the

02:24 mill and then so it's just been great to be sort of like a very very tiny part

02:30 and from selling in the gallery to see all these events and the event spaces

02:34 develop and yeah we've just sort of you know still get invited to come along and

02:38 be a very tiny part of it which is a real privilege and so this is like the

02:44 start of the Christmas celebrations. If you've not been to Sunnybank Mills ever

02:48 or in a long time it's changed massively over the years it has grown and it's

02:54 exciting and vibrant and and it's just a brilliant place you can tell I love

02:59 working here so and I really do and all our team are the same so it's just