I could look at Rachel Wetzler’s quilt The World for hours. (It’s the TQL February centerfold). We had lots of questions for Rachel about how she makes such realistic animals and how she selects her fabrics, and we’ll talk about that another time. But she mentioned the fascinating results of the research she did to get the details just right, and I can’t wait to share that with you. Let’s eat dessert first today.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a celestial equator (the projection of the Earth’s equator outward onto the celestial sphere). I learned that the average number of whiskers on a cat is 24. I found out that no one knows for sure why there are gold spots on a monarch chrysalis. Hypotheses range from camouflage to a device for filtering wavelengths of light that may be harmful to the developing monarch,” she writes. “The world is endlessly entertaining!”

More from Rachel another time!

Jan Magee, The Quilt Life

Cat detail from The World, a quilt by Rachel Wetzler