I made this stacking rings toy for one of our sweet nephews a couple years back when I first started crocheting. It’s a mash-up of two different patterns–one for the animal heads and one for the stacking rings. The patterns are from Vanna Choice’s book Easy Crochet Critters (which I bought from Michael’s, but can be purchased on Amazon.com), and the free Pond Friends stacking rings pattern which can be found here .
As you can see, I used the heads off of the critters from Vanna’s book, sewing them onto the rings. From what I can remember, I just crocheted the backs of the heads closed by decreasing to 6sc then closing the hole. For the brown spots on the giraffe, I crocheted a few flat circles starting with a magic ring and 6 sc, increasing to 18 sc on some, and 12 sc on others, then sewed them directly on the post in random spots. I improvised the ears and the horns, embroidered the mouth using yarn, and used embroidery floss to stitch the eyes and nose.
This is an old picture, but our nephew mastered stacking the rings on his own. 🙂
annaweee.com 