Miranda Pereira knows all too well how getting creative can change a life. She was left rehabilitating for over two years, relearning the basics to function again, following life saving brain surgery for a cerebral brain aneurysm. “I spent two and a half years in a body that needed rest, with a mind that was in over drive.” she said. Pereira had been a Director of an Advertising Communications agency. She now desperately needed occupation but had real physical limitations that were holding her back. “The neurosurgeon told me to use my hands. And I did. “My mother died of exactly the same brain condition 12 months before me. We are one of a rare set of parent and child with this genetic vascular condition occurring in such close succession. Miranda’s husband opened boxes that contained what used to be Pereira’s mothers creative workshop from the family home. Miranda began fiddling with fabric, fibre and hooks and needles. Everything she could get her hands on!! “By the end of those years I’d made weaving looms using door knobs and window fastenings and by knocking out the seats of Bentwood chairs to use their circular frames.” “I had invented and mastered knitting and knotting. Miranda Pereira realized the power of the tools she had dangling right there on the end of her two arms. “I had discovered my hands. “It was a wonderful feeling to think of something and then do everything I could to knit or knot it to life. Ms Pereira then developed her own fashion label, DAATO, designing hand-made garments, home wares and accessories using natural, renewable and biodegradable Australian fibres. Pereira’s mantra: ’you are never down on luck if you have a good pair of hands.