Tinking back

Have you ever had that moment when you hold up a finished project and just admire your work? I had one of those the other day when I finished the sweater I've been knitting in a pretty shade of lilac. I ran my hands up and down the body of the sweater admiring my work when I found: "IT!"
"IT" turned out to be a huge, gigantic offensive hole right in the middle of my left sleeve! Having fortitude and chocolate both in great supply I set out to sew up the hole. After all, how hard could it be? I'd simply sew up the hole, soak the sweater and then proudly wear the thing before it became to warm. Right?
Turns out not only was there one hole but it morphed in to 2 holes. As I was sewing up the first nasty hole a few more stitches dropped and I was left with another hole to fix. At this time I still had hope and so I trudged on sewing up the hole in my sleeve. I thought about tinking back to the spot but the thought of knitting the sleeve over again was just a little to much for my sense of pride. I knew that my sweater was far from perfect and I was accepting of that; as long as I could wear it I really didn't care about the hole. Until...
Yes, it gets better. After I sewed up the hole and wove in all the ends I thought I was done with the mini ordeal. I set the sweater to soak and when I came back a few minutes later to wrap it in several old towels I about died. Not only had the sweater grown and thus the hole had reopened, but the smell was enough to chase away even the most seasoned of knitters. Now I'm not a smoker, nor do I knit in bars while attempting to drink red wine while simultaneously lecturing my dates on the afordability of wool over synthetic fabrics; but at this moment in time I thought about that wool Vs. synthetics lecture and sided with synthetics! Not only did this sweater stink horribly of wet wool but it had a kind of raw animal smell as well. I worried as I laid the sweater on towels to dry in front of the fire that perhaps it would never stop smelling of wet dirty sheep.
I am happy to report that after 3 days in which I've petted, hugged, sniffed and even shown off my sweater the smell is gone; but the hole was not. Every time I put on the sweater, picked up the sweater, thought about the sweater I kept seeing the holes in the sleeve and my shitty attempt at fixing them. So today without the comforts of chocolate since I'm attempting to lose weight I began to contemplate tinking back to the holes and really fixing them for good. I gave up on my pride since that always goes before the fall and decided that I couldn't live with a sweater that wasn't my absolute best work. With the scissors in hand and a few stitch holders I began the long process of tinking back what to many would have been an acceptable sleeve; but to me was far from my best work.
Since I knew that I couldn't stand to tink back over half a sleeve I did the unthinkable. I took a pair of scissors to my sweater! Yes, I actually took a pair of scissors to my lovely, smooshy huggable sweater. I snipped the sleeve just below the shitty sewing job from yours truly and began to unravel my knitting. When I worked a row beyond the mistake that caused the hole I put my stitches on to 2 holders, counted them to figure out where I was in the decrease pattern and ripped out another row so that I was in my first round after a decrease row. It was at this point that I started to knit.... and knit.... and knit....
Now, 7 hours later I have a completed sweater once again. The sleeves are about as close to perfect as I can get them, I need to soak just a sleeve so I can block it to the exact shape as the other one but beyond that I'm happy! The sweater is done, the smell is gone, the cat is lying on it and all is right in the world once again.