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.