Last Updated on 02/06/2021 by Mandy
SYNOPSIS
Miranda lives with her husband Tom in Brunswick and has a passion for knitting! She is able
to imprint the feelings and thoughts of others and bring them into a physical form. When she
sits down at her knitting machine she is able to bring to life the desires of others. Through the
health crisis of one of her peers, she has able to overcome her self-confidence issues and put
her work on show. She is then transformed into a successful artist.
Her inner journey is one of achieving financial independence through her knitting machine to
reduce her reliance on her husband.
A STORT STORY
I wonder who’s knitting for me, I wonder just who she can be?
Now I wonder if she’s tall, I wonder if she’s small?
I’d love her, I’d love her, Why for her I would fall
It’s comforting you must admit, To know that she’s doing her bit
Knit, knit, knit, the girls are knitting, I wonder who’s knitting for me?
Miranda was so excited by her discovery. She had found the album online, a collection of
WW1 knitting songs, performed and released by a professional chanteuse in the US. She
loaded them into her iPhone and set them up to play in her spare room. It transported her into
another time, when men wore uniforms and fought to protect the welfare of those they had
never met. Where old ways were valued and men openly dreamed about somebody like her.
Miranda loved her knitting machine and often spent her afternoons sitting at her little table. It
was a Passap E 6000 with new LCD display and a long bed of needles. She had found her on
Gumtree needing an oil change and new sponge bar and her owner was selling
very reluctantly due to her loss of vision. She had named her Nora.
Miranda often dreamed about patterns and they came together in her head with
accompanying colours and textures. She took notes on her sketch pad and kept a box of
Derwent pencils by her bedside. After work, she would get out her sketchpad and pattern
notes she had made during her breaks at work.
Miranda was a petite girl, with mousey brown hair and a thoughtful look about her. She was
often approached in the supermarket by people looking for an item who thought she might be
able to help. She worked part-time as an assistant framer at a nearby picture framing shop,
since leaving school.
The attention to detail and understanding of colour was what attracted her to knitting. She
liked to think of herself as creating a masterpiece and finishing the item so it was ready to be
hung on the client. She usually measured and cut the pictures and masked them before
mounting in the frame. It was precise work but the pay wasn’t great.
Ever since they reduced her hours, Nora had been her creative outlet. Her husband Tom had
been very supportive as he worked from home as a headhunter (or executive search
consultant), as he called himself, from their office.
Tom usually checked on her every day, either before lunch on her days off or before they
made dinner. He listened through the wall of their spare bedroom when he heard the hum of
her machine at work and waited until the sounds subsided. He loved seeing her creations and
was proud of her work. It was usually sporadic, but lately there had been very regular
sessions as she produced one or two items per day. Her creations were varied and often
peculiar.
Tom tapped on the door on his way out to get lunch. “Did you want anything from
Jellystone’s?” he asked. “Maybe… Could you get me a Berry muffin?”, she replied.
“No problem” he answered and was gone.
She met Tom, five years ago when he came into the shop, his company cheered her and she
felt they were kindred spirits, both seeking to help others, or at least improve their lives in a
small way. Tom had come into the shop to frame a family photo and ended up buying a
collection of wartime artworks, which now hang in the hallway. It took a few visits for Tom to
get the confidence to ask her out!
On his way back, Tom dropped off her muffin and hot chocolate (although she had not asked
him to do so). He stood in the doorway and his brown curly hair seemed more springy than
usual. He winked and lay her treat down on the table. He had a phone interview at 1.15 to
prepare for. Tom was a humanitarian, in a profession where insincerity was the norm and
greedy ‘sales’ types profited from the lives of others.
At the very least, he was helping people by removing them from one job they
hated, for another job they could hate in 6 months time… No really, he did seek to place them
in a better company than the one they had just left. Just last week, he pulled the pin on a
switcharoo, when he found out their new boss was a *****. He lost $500 in commission when
he convinced them to stay put.
They both loved their apartment in Brunswick, the run-down block of flats where they lived.
Since Miranda had been spending more time at home, he sensed she was depressed and he
had been doing his best to lift her spirits. She had always been shy and needed a put of a
push before she would put herself out there. She was afraid of criticism and didn’t want to be
known as a psychic!
It was true she was intuitive, she needed no help at all to get ideas. While others were knitting
scarves and baby booties, Miranda created her pieces on a whim. She conjured them up
during the night and then sketched them with her Derwents upon waking. Once the drawings
were made she was able to calculate the stitches and modify old patterns to knit.
“You’ll never guess what I made yesterday..a beret,” said Miranda. “Dreaming about a holiday
to France? Those WW1 songs must be getting into your system, replied her husband. “Don’t
worry, it’s hot pink” she exclaimed. Tom visibly relaxed. Upon inspection, he noted it could be
a frisbee, or even a plate! “Let’s do an experiment, let’s pop it out the front and see who
retrieves it” she said.
It took till the end of the school run for the beret to disappear. Tom and Miranda watched and
waited. He looked down and saw the beret draped over the picket fence, before a pink glove
snatched it away out of view. She squealed with excitement.
They ran down the stairwell together and managed to get a glimpse of the girl as she turned
the corner. “Bonus points, no double points” whispered Miranda. It was a little game she liked
to play. Double points for a matching outfit and bonus points for an identifiable match between
the item and the wearer.
“I really think you should put these online” said Tom over dinner. He was right, thought
Miranda.
After dinner, a phone call interrupted her thoughts. It was Margaret from the Brunswick
Machine Knitters Club. “Dot has had an accident. She has been admitted to the Royal
Women’s. Can you help me out by finishing off the Blue Fair Isle jacket she was working on
for the conference this weekend? The lining needs stitching and then it will be ready for
the exhibit”. She knew they didn’t have enough items for the exhibit. “It’s ok, that you don’t
want to show anything”. She mumbled, “It’s no trouble to finish it. Can I come by tomorrow to
pick it up?”
As soon as she hung up, Miranda started to panic. She hadn’t planning on going to the
Machine Knitters Convention this week. Too many people made her nervous. Admittedly,
they all loved knitting, so she should feel calmer in the company of friends.
That night she dreamed of a grey sky and started thinking about a flying helmet, the kind of
headgear that Amelia Earhart wore on her 1932 solo flight across The Atlantic. She had never
made something that was aeronautical. She drove to work with a new sense of freedom and
fun. She was excited for the first time in months. She visited Margaret on the way home and
picked up the jacket. Only a day’s work, she thought and planned to start on it after dinner.
Later after work, she sat down in front of her machine. Miranda made the adjustments to her
hat pattern and Nora kicked into action. Size 36 head. She felt a twinge of satisfaction as she
placed it on her Duchess mannequin. The helmet might be a bit too hard to find a new owner.
The next day, she finished sewing the jacket for Dot and opened her new account on
etsy called Mirra on Mitchell. She snapped the flying helmet with Instagram and posted it for
hire. She was too fond of it to part with it permanently. She just wanted to test the waters.
The following day, she woke dreaming of a continuous scarf, a snood made of leaves. She
took out her pad while the image was still fresh and sketched out the details. An autumn
palette bursting with colour. She would make a start on it after work and wear it to the
conference.
Miranda took out Dot’s Fair Isle jacket and set it up on her Duchess. It was the least she could
do. The stall looked very bare and Margaret was running late with her cushions and soft toys.
The obligatory baby booties and scarves were laid out in the corner. In a split decision, she
took off her snood and lay it across the table, the twists clearly visible and the leaves
appeared to jump out from her work. She took Amelia’s helmet from its hiding place in her
bag and put it on her model.
She wanted to give Margaret a surprise before the opening. She left her post behind the stall
to photocopy some more brochures for the group. As she ventured down the hall, she turned
to catch a tall lady from the stall opposite come across to touch the garments.
On her return, the lady came across the aisle and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Teresa from
Dairing. I love your display, is it yours?” She blushed, “No, just the snood and the helmet”.
She fingered the scarf dreamily, “the colours and choice of wool are excellent. I always
examine the stitches when I look at someone’s work. You have done an amazing job.” “The
helmet is very quaint. I have never seen anything like it! Would you be interested in displaying
some of your work in my store?”
Miranda paused to take a sip of her drink before answering. “That would be fantastic! I only
work part-time so I could easily take orders”. She rung Tom to say she would stay there for a
few hours but left him in suspense. Once the conference opened, the rest of the morning went
in a buzz. She answered questions about her machine, the stitches used, finishing techniques
and modifying patterns. She felt her confidence growing by the minute.
When she got home she was positively glowing, Tom took her out for dinner to The Curious
Goose. It was wonderful opportunity that Teresa had given her. As her husband joked over
their pizza, “You’ve created your own job.”
*
A few days later, there was an enquiry on etsy about her flying helmet, a lady down the road
wanted it for her costume party. She came by to try it on and it fit beautifully and Miranda
wondered if there was some cosmic force at play.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? Read the Addi Machine Knitting Review Addi Circular Machine Knitting Review