According to the Ribbon Project newsletter, "Participants may applique, batik, embroider, hook, needlepoint, paint, quilt, silk-screen, tie-die, weave, reproduce photographs, use iron-on fabric paints...to tell this nation that we love the earth and its people."

The segments must be made of strong cloth and must be 24 inches high and 40 inches long in order to be stitched together, said Ellen Sarkisian, a teaching consultant at the Danforth Center who is organizing the ribbon movement at Harvard.

Sarkisian's own banner contributions include one sewn-and-embroidered segment of mountains and a sunset, and another that traces the life of her two-year-old son. She said. "This project appealed to me because it is a positive approach. There's a lot that's appropriately frightening about learning about nuclear war."

"It's a very American thing to do, to make a quilt," she added.

Jones said that she has seen a variety of approaches to designing a segment, including depictions of flowers, music, and people's families. She also cited one segment showing the country with all the states quilted on in a different pattern of calico, one with children's paint-dipped handprints and one of "cooking," with potholders and cooking utensils attached to it.

"Some segments are incredibly beautiful, others are very simple." she said.

Displays

Although the finished product, consisting of the 50 states' combined efforts will find its permanent resting place in Chicago's Peace Museum, temporary displays of completed panels will appear across the country to set the age for the August event.

Part of Cambridge's contribution to the movement will move to the Central Square branch of the Cambridge Public Library on February 14. The Valentine's Day unveiling of the segments will constitute part of a ceremony marking the opening of the library's own "peace collection."

Cambridge librarian Kevin J. Donnelly said that the library's new collection of books about peace is "geared not just toward students and children, but toward the general reader who wants to be an informed citizen." The collection is funded by the Cambridge Commission on Nuclear Issues and Peace Education and by donations from bookstores.

Donnelly added that the banner representatives will represent their cause at the collection's opening, and that the Mayor of Cambridge will cut a ribbon and make a speech.

Additional panels will be on display at the Boston Marathon and on Patriot's Day, Irons said.

Sew-Ins

Although organizers have been holding "Sew-Ins" in churches, community centers, and people's homes to distribute information and to work on segments, this is the first time that such a project has visited Currier House, according to Brenda Chamberlain, assistant to the masters at Currier.

The project coordinators said that they plan to bring a slide show of panels from across the country--along with professional quilters and artisans--to the Gilbert Party Room on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Jones said that student help is needed not only to make banners, but also to help the project with publicity and perhaps to assemble kits containing cut-out panels of regulation size and other necessary materials.

Sarkisian said that if the turnout at Currier is large enough she may make the sew-in a weekly event. "It's a way to make a personal statement about a problem that nobody knows what to say or do about."

Sarkisian added, "Someone told me that we ought to be making a ribbon to wrap around the Kremlin, too."