Color, pleeeaase, I neeeed COLOR

There's a scene from the movie Shadowlands that captures my mood this time of year. C.S. Lewis and a colleague are sitting together in a library on a gray day in late winter.

"I've always found this a trying time of the year."
"Trying? To do what, Jack?"
"The leaves not yet out, mud everywhere you go,
Frosty mornings gone, sunny mornings not yet come.
Give me blizzards and frozen pipes, but not this nothing time, not this waiting room of the world."

Yes, Jack, my sentiments exactly. These damp, gray days are getting to me, and the Philadelphia Flower Show is still two months away. The next best thing is to find something colorful and stare at it for a long time, like this glowing basket of plant-dyed wool roving which I placed on the sofa in a patch of sunlight that I knew wasn't going to last. But while it did I was going to make the most of it.

Ahhhhh, starting to feel better already. What other colorful thing can we do?

I know, let's make a yarn of sorts from pot holder loops. Remember those?

Loop them together into long chains.

Roll them into balls so they don't get tangled.

Next, using a large crochet hook, make a simple chain stitch. Chain the whole ball of "yarn".

You'll wind up with these thick cords...

...which could possibly eventually become a cheerful rag rug once I learn how to sew the strips together.