The round 1 Nerd Wars challenge for the Encyclopedia category is the Zoo, which since it also includes aquariums, brought to my mind the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. It was the very first “place that has animals to look at” that either of my kids visited, and we used to go frequently when we were stationed in Texas. They had more than just fish, and one of my favorite sections was the Amazon area with the brightly colored birds and animals. The kids and I would always stop and have fun trying to find all the poison dart frogs, which were remarkably good at being able to hide amongst the leaves despite their bright colors. I didn’t use the exact coloring or patterning, but the colors I chose were inspired by all the colors that we found in that tank. So when Lexie asked me to make a frog for her teacher, I knew this would be perfect.

Team tie in: Willow suffers from Ranidaphobia (hence the project name), which she admits to Giles in season 2 - he wakes her from a nightmare and she yells, “Don’t warn the tadpoles!”

Notes and mods:

• I was using fingering weight yarn held double. I thought the yarn skein was variegated green and purples, but it turned out to be 2 different smaller skeins - one green and one in purples. So I striped the frog.

• The eyes I used were much bigger than called for in the pattern, and I thought they might be too big…but I think they accidentally turned out perfect.

• For the toes, doing a sc was too wide, so I used a slip stitch instead. Also, since the middle toes on poison dart frogs are longer than the side toes, I did each middle tow with one additional stitch and the side toes with one less stitch than the pattern called for. I also left off the suckers.