Retreat Information - About Your Hosts

About your hosts

Your hosts for your Lake District retreat are mother and daughter, Susan and Charlie.

Susan will be with you throughout the retreat, both as teacher but also as your host. Susan is also your host on any outings and will spend time with the group each evening. Charlie will be your cook, providing you with fabulous home-cooked meals using local, seasonal ingredients for the entire retreat.

A little about Susan
Susan first learnt to knit at the age of four, taught by her maternal grand-mother Ruby. Throughout her teens, knitting was Susan's primary hobby which she later turned into her career and business. After the premature birth of her daughter, Charlie, and after several years spent in administrative jobs that she didn't enjoy, Susan returned to college to study Hand Knitting. Shortly after completing college, she started working for Rowan Yarns as a Design Consultant. As this position was only part-time, Susan returned to college and completed her training to be a teacher and began to lecture and teach on a part-time basis at her local art college. However she longed to pursue her first love of knitting on a full time basis, and finally with the publication of her first book, A Stitch in Time Volume 1, she took the plunge and set up her own business.

There have been many twists and turns, ups and downs along the way, but after recovering from breast cancer in 2018 and caring for her mother until she passed away in late 2022, Susan has been able to once again focus fully on knitting and passing on her knowledge and experience at our wonderful retreats.

A little about Charlie
Susan's daughter, Charlie, has had a lifelong love of food. Even as a small child, she was eager to try new flavours and especially enjoyed mealtimes and cooking with her family. After attending Edinburgh University to study film, Charlie remained in Edinburgh, managing a small but busy cafe. Here she learnt 'on the job' how to cater for large numbers of people and her morning pancake stacks became legendary! At this point, she also took the formal qualifications needed to work in the catering industry. After returning to her parents small farm after Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer, she became Susan's primary carer, making meals for the family and ensuring everyone was well-fed. After her mother's recovery, Charlie remained at the farm, taking over the small market garden and polytunnel, using organic growing methods and even setting up a local veg box scheme. She also began to run 'supper clubs' from the farm's 16th century barn with people travelling from around the region to enjoy a three course meal cooked by Charlie.

At around this time, Charlie was offered an internship at one of the Lake District's leading restaurants - currently it holds two Michellin stars. Whilst learning alot, Charlie came to realise that the unsocial hours of full-time chefing were not for her, and during the pandemic began to learn hand-dyeing. Similar to cooking in many ways, Charlie took to hand-dyeing like a duck to water, and has been our full time hand dyer ever since. However she returns to her first love of cooking for all of our retreats, creating beautiful meals using local, seasonal produce.