Gradations Bag followup

Oh my, such excitement over my Gradations Bag!  Thank you, thank you for all the kind comments about it.  I have still been proudly carrying it around. 

Lois, I don't think I'll be selling these.  1 - I didn't check the terms of use, but I'd probably have to buy some kind of license to use this pattern to sell, and 2 - With as much time went into this, I'd have to charge like $400 for one to make it worth my while.  :-)  That said, for friends and family who have voiced some interest, I'll see what I can do just cause I love yas!

Mom - sorry I misunderstood your glances.  Maybe I'll let you borrow it when I visit.  :-)

Gradations Bag from Modern Mix

I have a new project to show today... not the usual.  I made a little bag for summer.  Usually I prefer a leather, store-bought bag (with the exception of this, I hardly ever use bags I've made), but when i saw this pattern I fell in love.

The pattern is from Modern Mix, a quilting book by Jessica Levitt.  I found it on sale at Connecting Threads.  That's a great price - I paid quite a bit more at a local quilting fabric shop.  There's a review of the book on StashBooks here, which shows a bunch more projects.

ANYWAY, I really love the projects in this book.  They really are modern and "Mix" refers to mixing prints and solids.  I do think it makes for a cleaner, less-busy look than all prints.  The project I made is the Gradations Bag.  I love the graphic impact of the bold stripes.  I mixed them with a natural linen/cotton for summer instead of the dark color shown in the example.

The example from the book:

Magnet snap - love this.

The back:

Had to show off my decent matching at the bottom seam. :-)

Inside pocket - there's just one, but it's a fairly small bag, and it would be easy to add more if you prefer it that way.

Fabric covered cardboard bottom.

Ok, it's time for a revelation.  My mom was here when I bought the book and started working on this bag.  She didn't "get" it.  I think she thought it was an interesting design with the gradually changing color, but she was not a big fan of the bag.  I thought "ok - not everyone has the same taste - the world would be boring if we did, yadda yadda yadda."  Fast forward to having it finished and carrying it around, and I've gotten not one compliment.  A bit odd given I have friends who look for my new creations.  I'm wondering if I have very unique tastes and it's really just not an attractive bag.  My feelings aren't hurt - I still love it, but it just seems odd to me.  Such dramatic problems!  :-)