Duck Sweater Repair

So, there's this sweater I knit back in the 90s even though I had no clue how to do intarsia...

... which has been resurrected of late and worn so often that one of the baby ducks got a stain on his face and I had to renew my attention to it (you're seeing it clean, post-washing and blocking). The baby ducks, by the way, go all the way around the waist for reasons that made sense to me at the time. 

In fact, here it is in all its wrinkled glory: 

Once I had it clean and was looking more closely at it, I saw THIS

There's a hole in the sleeve!!!!!!!!

It's still small. The wool around it was holding and not giving up more stitches. But I can guarantee you I no longer have any scraps left from the yarn I used to make this thing. I spent about an hour on Monday pulling out all the scraps I do have and discovered that this particular shade of green is not one I've favoured since. Eventually though, I found some wool/mohair boot sock yarn with an almost correct shade of green between the blues and the acid greens. WHEW.

So that left me with the problem of how to mend the hole so it wouldn't show. 

Which is also something I have limited skills for. I did have some resources for research and testing, but when it came to the point I ignored them, convinced I could go it alone. Obviously that didn't go well. But after three or four tries I thought, in the spirit of this sweater, maybe I should just do my best with the skills I have today and make that endeavour part of the Duck Sweater's history? 

I did my best, and got this:

It's not perfect. But it's also in an armpit. And now the sweater can get out there again into the cold snap we're having.

That's what I learned this week. Sometimes something is better than nothing, and also, never toss your yarn scraps! Because you never know, amiright?

Hope you have some small win this weekend in the absence of any huge ones, though of course I wish those for you as well. I'm content with this one, personally, and will gratefully top that up with a cup of tea. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next Saturday!