This Star-Spotted Giraffe pattern comes in two sizes - adult and baby. They were inspired by a visit to see the beautiful, long-legged, long-eyelashed giraffes at London Zoo. Knitted in simple stocking stitch, the giraffes are covered all over with embroidered stars worked in brown yarn.

The body, legs and head all have some simple shaping. The main time-consuming part is adding the star spots. For a large giraffe, these are made from the embroidery stitch ‘lazy-daisy’ – five chain stitches in a star shape. For a baby giraffe, each star is made of five radiating straight stitches. You could do a lot fewer stars if you wanted to make your toy more quickly.

A donation from sales of giraffe knitting patterns is made to ZSL (www.zsl.org, which runs London Zoo), the conservation charity, research and education organisation working to promote and achieve worldwide conservation for animals and their habitats.