When she started quilting, Monica Howard-Martin, the assistant dean of veterinary student success at Iowa State, said it did not cross her mind to look for fabrics with respect to cultural expression. It was not until she went to a quilt conference out of state and met a vendor who used African fabrics that she decided to make quilts with similar cultural fabrics.

“I’ve made quilts that I’ve given away. I have a best friend who also collects a lot of African decor, and I made her quilts out of African fabric,” Howard-Martin said. “It’s just a way to connect.”

Howard-Martin began quilting in 2001 after taking a T-shirt quilting class to re-purpose her daughter’s old high school tees.

With no prior quilting experience “it was painful because I’d never done anything like that before,” Howard-Martin said.

However, the class led Howard-Martin to become interested in different types of quilting and fabric designs. Now, her quilts have been displayed throughout Ames and in various quilting guilds, including the Ames Quilt Guild, which she is a member of.

The fabrics found in quilt stores around Ames are mostly Americanized African motifs, Howard-Martin said, which leaves her to find fabric online at shops such as Cultured Expressions or at stores out of state.

“So in the Midwest, particularly in Iowa, it’s hard to find [those fabrics] pretty much unless you have somebody else coming from outside to bring it in,” Howard-Martin said.

Howard-Martin said she also has had colleagues who have gone to Africa and brought her back fabrics.

On a trip to St. Paul, Minnesota, Howard-Martin went to a quilt store and specifically asked the proprietor if she had African prints. The owner referred her to a new designer, E Bond, an African American graphic artist who had just begun working with fabric.

“I immediately saw her fabrics and I said, ‘Well, here’s a person who’s African American. I want to support her in her business,’ and I bought the complete line of fabrics from her first line,” Howard-Martin said.

When she came back to Iowa, Howard-Martin said she went to all the quilt shops in the area asking if they had heard of the designer.

“Everybody’s saying no, even though her line was carried by a fabric line called Free Spirit, and everybody carries fabrics from Free Spirit,” Howard-Martin said. “But nobody, none of the representatives were showing her line down here.”

Since then, Howard-Martin said she has been asking about e bond’s fabric at the quilt shops she frequents.

“It’s funny now I go to several quilt shops, and I can see her fabric in their stores,” Howard-Martin said. “So I feel like I’ve had some part in promoting her, which makes me feel good.”

While Howard-Martin has only sold one quilt, she said she has given multiple to charity auctions and more away as gifts.

Howard-Martin puts together the top of the quilt and pieces on the back of it, then takes it to a quilter, usually Liz Meimann of A Quilted Memory in Nevada, who then puts it on a long arm quilting machine.

“[Then] she stitches the back end to the front, and there’s all sorts of different designs,” Howard-Martin said.

Another quilter Howard-Martin said inspires her is textile artist Bisa Butler, who creates portraits that capture the souls, personalities and humanity of Black men, women and children in vibrant textile quilts.

“That’s not something I see myself doing, but it’s one of those things that inspires you and just brings you joy,” Howard-Martin said.

Howard-Martin said she sees quilting as a creative release for her.

“To have quilts that folks won’t see here, expressions that they won’t see in Iowa is very important that they see that, and so I use it as much for me as just a cultural embracement as well as an education for those who see the quilts,” Howard-Martin said.

Most recently, Howard-Martin has been working with Australian prints.

“That’s not part of my genealogy, but recently I did a quilt that is pretty much Australian quilt fabric and I made a point of looking up who the designers were who were Aboriginal and reading about their story and looking at their artwork and looking at the symbolism in those fabrics,” Howard-Martin said.

In making that quilt, Howard-Martin said she made a document detailing the different fabrics in each block with information on the designers.

“I want to be very conscious of appropriating other people’s cultures, and I know that these types of things are things you’re not going to see in Iowa. So I just tried to bring that into my presence,” Howard-Martin said.

Howard-Martin’s quilts honoring her African American heritage will be on display from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, at KHOI Community Radio.