making patterns

Hi to everyone.  Just wanted to say up front that I am a casual user of Illustrator and I've been teaching myself as I go along.  I am in awe of the things that you can to with this software so I hope my question is not to naive.  I have gotten pobably 90 percent of my skills from watching you tube and just recently I discovered an instructional video by Odysseyroc that was phenomenal in making fish scales patterns.  The instructions were easy to follow but I have a question about applying gradient color to the pattern.  I tried applying several muted colors to the fish scale pattern but when I added the gradient to the pattern and tried to save it for future use I discovered that you could save the colored pattern but when I tried to use it in a different document the pattern came out all blockie.  You can of course create a gradient in a shape and then add the actual pattern to the shape but it looks so much like a kid's coloring book I see no point in continuing.  I hope someone who knows about patterns can help me figure out a way to make colors a part of the pattern so that you can use them in any shape that requires a fish scale pattern.  Thanks in advance.

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