I Never Win Anything

I love ModCloth.  I think they have a great variety of fun clothes, a good range of sizes, great customer service, and while the prices are sometimes high, they have good sales.  So when I saw that they were having a textile design contest, I was all about it.  I thought, I'm a shoe in.  I have a good eye for color and creating patterns comes very naturally to me.  My only problem was that once I found out about the contest, I only had one week to submit.  I worked at it and this is what I came up with.  Personally, I love these patterns, but of course I'm biased.   

So I submitted on time with all of the required criteria and waited for the results.  Guess what, I didn't make the cut.  When I heard the news, I was a little distraught.  I wanted to know why.  What were these judges looking for?  So I waited until the public voting stage of the contest to see what textile designs were considered better than mine.  I was expecting greatness.  They're good, but not any better.  Once I looked closely at all of the accepted designs, I realized that they're all blue and mauve, two of my least favorite colors.  Really blue and mauve?  What year is it?  

Then I remembered that there was a guest judge who is the costume designer for Portlandia.  I'm guessing that her favorite colors are blue and mauve and that I probably wouldn't like her.

Even though I didn't win this contest, I determined that I'm a natural at textile design and am considering pursuing this further.  Any advice on how that is done would be greatly appreciated.