Remember this sweater?

I finished all the duplicate stitch color work on all the white bands.

All the little cats and flowers and even beads for the cat's eyes.

And four little cat faces for each sleeve.

It all took a lot of time. I could only work on it when I had good light and lots of patience, and each little motif took about an hour to finish.

So it was finished and I thought it was one of the most beautiful, intricate things I'd made. It looked good on Malcolm and he loved it.

This morning, he brought it to me and said, "The rats gnawed a hole in my sweater."

They sure did. They really did a number on the back of the right sleeve.

I was heartsick. There are several very large holes and a number of smaller ones. 

Fortunately, the rats managed to selectively gnaw the plain green section of the arm, not touching any of the color work.

Still, it's going to be a big repair job, the biggest I've ever done. I think I'll pick up stitches around the good part of the lower arm, detach it from the rest of the arm, rip the arm back through the biggest holes, repair the smaller holes that are very high up on the arm, re-knit the middle section of the arm, and then graft the good lower arm back on.

Sigh. I thought this sweater had already consumed enough of my life, but I guess it's my destiny to spend more time with it.

Just yesterday, I was talking about how I always save a little yarn from each project for repairs. I've repaired 20-year-old sweaters with the original yarn. I mentioned how hard growing boys are on their sweaters, but growing boys are not near as hard on sweaters as their pet rats.

On the bright side, this gives me an opportunity to document this repair job.