Here are my modifications:
-I used a continuous spiral the whole time instead of slip stitching at the end of each round. It worked out fine this way.
-After messing up once, I charted out the instructions for the increases on the head. I caught the typo this way, and it worked out really well the second time.
-For round 9 of the body, I worked through the back loop only. Then I used the front loops to attach the skirt (next time, I would do round 10 BLO so that the front loops would be from round 9).
-I added a round on the body: sc2tog, sc 2 around. This way the head and the body had the same number of stitches, which made attaching easier.
-Any time there were single crochet stitches followed by decreases, I switched them. So that the decreases came first. I’m just used to doing it this way and didn’t want to mess it up.
-For the arms, I didn’t decrease on round 12. I just single crocheted around.
-I followed the written instructions (rather than the charted instructions) to make the skirt. So there is a picot for every double crochet.
-I lightly stuffed the ears, and whip-stitched them closed before attaching. I attached them to rounds 1-8 of the head.
-I used this pattern to make the flower.