Fashions in Quick Crochet - Bag

I decided to try the bag from the front cover of Fashions in Quick Crochet for this week's project. The pattern says you need 3 balls of Canary Yellow and 2 balls of Fudge Brown to make the set. I had some vintage Aqua Speed-Cro-Sheen for the main color, but probably not enough of it to do the entire bag according to their color plan. I decided I'd use the brown for the base and add another color in for the contrast color if necessary. It also says you need a No. 8 knitting pin and a 3.5mm crochet hook.

The pattern starts with the base. This was supposed to be in yellow but I decided to try to use brown here to make sure I'd have enough blue (that I'm subbing for yellow) for the rest of the bag. The last round of the base has you crochet in the back loop of the previous row over 10 strands of thread. I used some other blue scrap thread for the 10 strands knowing they'd be mostly hidden. The photo below shows what the base looks like after this part. The directions say to just cut off the remaining strands. I tried to knot them and/or weave them in. It wasn't pretty but it's the inside of the bag. If I did it again, I'd just weave them into the other side of the blue strands or, if I used the same color it could get woven into the base.

The main body of the bag (they call it the "sidepiece") has you crochet over the knitting pin every third round, increasing 6 single crochets for every 1.5 inches you work until the bag measures 8.5 inches. I ended up increasing every 6ish rounds, which was less often than every 1.5 inches, but I was still worried I wouldn't have enough blue. Even wit that, I still ran out of blue and ended up doing the last few rows in brown and cream.

The stripes are done by making a chain 38 inches long, slip stitching back along it, and then weaving the strips between the bars on the rounds done over the knitting pin. While you're doing that, you also need to make knots evenly staggered, like the photo. The strips were often way too long, and you can see in the photo below that there are long sections that are sewn in on the inside.

The handles gave me much more trouble than they should have. I though I'd saved just enough brown to make the handles but after taking a two week break on the project and coming back to it I realized I'd cut the strands for the handles half the length they should have been and that was all of the size 3 brown thread I had. I didn't have enough of any other size 3 thread to cut 24 strands of thread 2 yards long so I used size 10 instead. I could have used more strands but I knew I'd have to figure out how to deal with them on the inside of the bag so I just left it at 12 strands each. The handles are twisted one way, then doubled over and twisted the other way to get a rope. There are no directions on how to attach them. I have one side looped over a stitch and the other side tied off inside (shown in the photo above). 
The finishing instructions say to cut a piece of cardboard the same size as the bottom of the bag and then line with felt. It doesn't say if you're lining the cardboard or the entire bag so I just skipped that part for now. If the full bag was lined with felt it would give it a lot more structure.

Here's my finished bag with a cat for size comparison.

The scoring:
Is the pattern easy to understand? There were key things that were skipped over, and a lack of finishing detail for some pieces. 0.5
If there is a gauge, could I match it? There was a gauge of 5.5 single crochets to an inch that I did match. 1.0
Does it look like the photo? Mostly 0.75
Would someone use this? Maybe with a little extra work. Adding a lining and adding a clasp of some kind at the top would make a big difference. 0.75
Did I enjoy making this? Not really. This took me about 6 weeks on and off, mostly because I didn't really want to work on it. I ended up making a bunch of red hats instead of working on this project. I'm not sure what it was that I didn't like aside from the lack of specifics on some things. Working around the knitting pin on a circular project was awkward. 0.25

Total score 3.25

It now hangs over a door-knob and holds extra feather cat toys.