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The knitnotwar 1,0o0 project

knitnotwar 1,0o0—a display of a thousand knitted cranes, involves a large number of artists, crafters, knitters and others in a large scale, community based, public art installation-- celebrating the quiet logic of peace. More than a hundred artists will knit one thousand origami style cranes, to be displayed late 2007 in Portland, Oregon.

The origami crane is an international symbol of peace, due to the hopeful and heroic story of Sadako Sasaki. Sadako died of Leukemia after exposure from US atom bombings of Hiroshima in 1945. Following a Japanese legend of folding 1,000 paper cranes-- a kind of prayer for long life and recovery-- Sadako hoped to get well. She completed over 1,000 folded cranes before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of 12. Thousands of artists, children, religious groups, and other organizations commit to folding strands of a thousand cranes every year to express their commonality in banning nuclear weapons-- their solidarity for peace.

To reach the goal of a thousand cranes, pledge to donate 10 (RSVP deadline March 1, actual donation deadline May 1, 2007), or organize a group of knitters and pledge 100! You can get the pattern PDF here (to the right of the screen-- I print page one, flip it over in the printer and print page two-- it makes a nice pamphlety sort of document). Please do email me if you have questions!

Happy knitting,

Seann