Knitting Cranes for Peace

I often read knitting blogs during lunch, and today I stumbled across an interesting project. Portland knitter (and partner of Decemberist guitarist Chris Funk who challenged Stephen Colbert to a shred off on the awesome Colbert Report) Seann McKeel is calling for knitters to send her knit cranes for Universal Peace Day based on her pattern. Knitters can use a variety of yarns or embellisments, but the basic pattern is pretty easy - only 53 rows per crane, then felting.

Because the project is an homage to Sadako Sasaki, a girl who developed radiation poisioning and folded over 1000 paper cranes in the hope that the gods would make her wish of running again come true, McKeel wants to have more than 1000 (10 from each knitter) to send to Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park after she displays them in Portland on August 5th.

I'm going to be taking part in this project and I encourage everyone who might be interested to join in. If you're interested in making your own cranes, you must RSVP by March 1 and send McKeel the cranes by May 1. The pattern can be found here.

...I wonder if I could get Cranbrook involved considering their mascot is the crane and the art academy does have a fiber program...