I gotta get me some velcro!

I’ve been meaning to make a little case for our (evil) cell phone but didn’t get around to it … until today! Tadaaa!
I scrounged up some old quilted fabric I got in Japan years ago (but I still love Anpanman) and whipped it out. I made a buttonhole for the obtrusive antenna. Now I just need some velcro for the flap.
Last night I started on my Smooch rip-off tank. I know I’m probably setting myself up for disaster by making up the pattern as I go along, but there’s only so much math my brain can do at once! The real Smooch is not knit in the round, but hey, I’m doing it in the round! The gauge of my yarn, Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, is probably different, too, but so what! My math calculations for casting on for the loopy, picot-ish hem were only off by like 2 stitches. I was very surprised. I thought for SURE I would mess that one up, especially since I had to cast on 281 stitches. You read correctly there–281. It took a long time! But, as you can see, it looks decent enough (I am not so particular, unfortunately): (sorry for the annoying glare spot).
I was going to do the chevron & eyelet pattern that knitting bloggers have referred to (bloggers knitting the REAL Smooch), but I decided that I shouldn’t plagiarize so completely, so I am going to attempt some other pattern, taken from this book I got in Japan long ago:
It contains patterns for 500 different designs. It has diagrams and symbols (well, and some Japanese, but I can only read a few words). Many of the patterns I cannot decipher. The one I’m planning to use has a bobble that employs a crochet hook. I tried to do it before but couldn’t figure it out. I guess if I can’t figure out this particular bobble, I can resort to the standard bobble. We’ll see what happens! Sometimes it’s good to break out of one’s comfort zone, wouldn’t you agree?