Struggling with a Sweater

I'm working on a sweater that's giving me nothing but trouble. It was originally intended to be for Izzy, and I had wanted to take her first pictures wearing a new outfit including that sweater.  But even at the beginning I was having so much trouble trying to figure out the stitch count for her size and the gauge for the thread thickness, that I had to unravel and start over three times. So I didn't bother waiting for Izzy photos, and thought maybe the sweater would be nice for Benny after she's painted. 

I wanted an Aran design, and chose white and light blue for the pattern colours. After knitting many rows in the pattern, I noticed that the section of the sweater body after I started knitting the  pattern was more than an inch narrower than the lower section, and that was with me trying to knit as loosely as possible. I didn't think the sweater would be wide enough anymore if I continued with it the way I was, and thought maybe if I unraveled the entire pattern, and inserted a bunch of extra stitches into the width just as I was starting the pattern, that the resulting 'tightness' would 'shrink' down to the actual wanted width of the sweater.

So I did, and it's working, but I lost two whole days worth of knitting in the process. Thankfully I started with the sweater body, since the sleeves will be a lot less work once I get to them. But I'm using rather short double pointed needles and the stitches kept sliding off the end. So I took two tiny elastics and wound a temporary  'knob' on the ends of the needles. Problem solved!

Once it's done, I'll see who the sweater will fit best - Benny or Izzy.