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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2018)
October 31, 2018 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News Quilts cont’d from pg 1 on repetitions, orderly rows, and symmetry in both the patchwork and the quilting, the modern approach is more free form with unusual ar- rangements and experi- mental fabrics. “I’m really good with tools and finding a differ- We almost fell out of our chairs looking at her piece ent approach,” she said of picking up the technique so fast. Her quilting communi- ty agrees. “She showed up at our guild meeting a little over a year ago, showing us her first quilt,” said Joy Ruplinger of the Port- land Modern Quilt Guild. “We almost fell out of our chairs looking at her piece, one that only a seasoned quilter would attempt. She quickly won everyone’s hearts with her sweet and lovely de- meanor.” It’s fair to say that Ben- nefield has an innate knack for creative de- sign. In her personal life, she tried her hand at Bob Ross-inspired landscape painting and sewed clothing and Halloween costumes for her four children when they were younger. With her kids now grown up and moved out, Bennefield has found the time to focus on quilting. She taught herself the ba- sics through online tuto- rial sites like Craftsy and Creative Bug. “One of the things I’ve learned is what a quilt re- ally is,” she said. “There’s this thing called a quilt sandwich.” Essentially, the sand- wich is compiled of three layers: the top design made from piecing to- gether various fabrics, a middle layer of batting, and a bottom layer (or backing) which is typi- cally a solid piece of fab- ric or another less com- plicated design. “Quilting is actually what you do to stitch all three of those layers together,” said Bennefield. “So there’s all these decisions that you have to make.” For her quilts, Ben- Ceasefire employs spiral stitching, too, starting in the center of the blanket and work- ing outwards. Professionally, Benne- field comes from a back- ground in IT. It makes sense, she said, because “as a kid, I liked to take things apart and put them back together.” In 1998, Bennefield moved from her native Houston, Texas to Bea- verton, Oregon to take a job at Nike, where she was also the president of the Black Employee Net- work for five years. Lat- er, she jumped ship to In- tel, where she’s currently employed as a user expe- rience designer. As a quilter, it’s a per- fect fit. Bennefield works from her home, which means she can do double duty between her work sta- tion and her quilt station, which are strategically located in the same room in her house. Beside a professional desktop set-up, Benne- field’s quilting world opens up into a colorful array of fabric swatches, ironing boards, sewing machines and measur- ing tools. The surround- ing walls are lined with shelves of spooled and rolled fabrics, neatly or- ganized by color and pat- tern. “Most of my work meet- ings are these online deals, so I will literally break out the iron when things get stressful,” she said. She’ll often alter- nate from one quilt to another, too, and laugh- ingly pointed to a box of scraps or half-started projects, which she calls her UFOs (“unfinished objects”). Read more at TheSkanner.com PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED “ nefield usually follows patterns from online sites like Pinterest and Instagram, but says her next step is to create her own. She’s also drawn to bright colors, pixelat- ed effects, and playing with negative space. Her quilting technique often Vigil for Pittsburgh The Rev. Kelle Brown sings along with other religious leaders and about 1,000 people inside Temple De Hirsch Sinai for the Seattle Vigil for Pittsburgh Oct. 29. An estimated crowd of 1,000 more people stood in the streets outside the building to honor the lives of the 11 people murdered in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh Oct. 27. Shooting cont’d from pg 1 Thursday. Authorities say he raged against Jews during the at- tack. Members of Pittsburgh’s grief-stricken Jewish communi- ty, meanwhile, endured another round of funerals for the congre- gants who were gunned down in Saturday’s rampage. Melvin Wax, 87, Irving Young- er, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were being laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services. “It can’t be fixed,” Robert Lib- man said at the funeral of Fien- berg, his sister, clutching his chest as he described the pain of losing her. “My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure good- ness. ... She was the most tolerant and gentle person that I’ve ever known.” Her sons, Anthony, of Paris, and Howard, of Vienna, Virginia, said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. “My mom would be very an- gry that her funeral wasn’t able to be at Tree of Life, and that her friends lost Saturday couldn’t be here,” Howard Fienberg said. The funerals for Wax and Younger were to be held later Tuesday. Six people were wounded in the attack, including four police offi- cers, two of whom remained hos- pitalized with gunshot wounds. Two congregants were still in the hospital, one in critical condition. In a bit of good news, hospital officials said the two most seri- ously injured shooting victims are improving. A police officer and a congre- gant remain in intensive care but “are doing much better now,” Dr. Donald Yealy, chairman of emer- gency medicine at UPMC, said Wednesday. “I think overall the “ It can’t be fixed. My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her prognoses are good now. But each of them, in a varying way, will have a different trajectory and likely will require a series of on- going care.” The first three funerals were held on Tuesday, with thou- sands of mourners jamming a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the funerals of a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the con- gregation, and two intellectually disabled brothers in the 50s who were known as “the boys.” Cecil and David Rosenthal were “beautiful souls” who had “not an ounce of hate in them — some- thing we’re terribly missing to- day,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survi- vor of the massacre, said at their funeral at Rodef Shalom, one of the city’s oldest and largest syna- gogues. The brothers were both active at Tree of Life, with Cecil the more gregarious of the two, a man with a booming voice who was known as the “mayor” of the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and the “town crier” for the gos- sip he managed to gather. “They were innocent like boys, not hardened like men,” the Rosenthals’ sister, Diane Hirt, told mourners. On Tuesday afternoon, after the day’s funerals were over, Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh to shout- ing, chanting protesters with signs such as “It’s your fault” and “Words matter,” a reference to al- legations that Trump’s combative language has emboldened bigots. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, both Democrats, declined to join him during the visit. “He didn’t pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don’t help,” said Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, wearing an- ti-Trump patches on his hat and jacket. Read more at TheSkanner.com cont’d from pg 1 Erika Preuitt, director of the Depart- ment of Community Justice’s Adult Ser- vices Division, said community mem- bers should be aware they can contact her department for help connecting with services, including mental health and housing. And community member Joe Bean Keller, who began volunteering in gang outreach in 1986 and whose son, De- ontae, was killed by Portland police in 1996, announced he would hold the first of a series of talk sessions at his home Oct. 27. He told The Skanner he intends to make the talks a recurring monthly event and that all members of the com- munity are welcome. Antoinette Edwards, director of the Office of Youth Violence Prevention, said families seeking assistance or in- formation should call her office, (503) 823-8263 or the Gang Impacted Family Team at (503) 823-4438. Kimberely Dixon, who talked about her son, Andreas, who was murdered in 2013, and the lifelong impact of grief, “ If it costs $30,00 a year to keep someone in jail, we don’t have a budget issue, we have a prioritization issue also implored those present to turn their ballots in. “If it costs about $30,000 a year to keep someone in jail, we don’t have a budget issue, we have a prioritization issue,” Dixon said. Black Male Achievement coordinator C.J. Robbins told The Skanner he thinks institutional change will be the key to addressing gun violence. “Nine times out of 10, by the time a young person has picked up a gun, there are several systems that have failed,” Robbins said.
