Gauge Woes

I've been knitting a while now ... long enough to know that I can't beat gauge.  I've tried and failed epically on many occasions.  Still do.  But usually it's my fault for not checking first.  When I do check - then I feel slighted.  My most recent sweater is what brings on this rant.  I swatched; I got gauge (or at least close enough that I was happy); I cast on and ran, trusting the pattern to not lead me astray.

My concern first appeared was when I finished the sleeves.  They looked more like elephant trunks (or something slightly more obscene ...) than sleeves because the seed stitch on the underside of the arm had significantly different row gauge than the pattern.

Whatever.  Totally blockable, right?

I continued onto the body, trusting my swatch and did the number of rows it said I needed to achieve a body length of 17".

See that wave in the bottom?  That's not an illusion - that's the sweater.  Never mind.  By this point I had washed the sleeves and had decided that it wasn't as big a problem as the pictures were leading me to believe.

Fast forward a week.  I'm finished.  I blocked it to the appropriate measurements no problem.  When I took out the blocking wires, it stayed put.  These were all very good signs.  I wore it out for the first time yesterday and by lunch the back was well above my pant line.  It started out below the tops of the pockets of my jeans :(

I took it off, bathed it again, and this time hung it to dry, hoping that the weight of the wet sweater would help.  We shall see.  Right now, it looks like the ribbon I sewed onto the underside of the button band is too short, but that is in fact where I would like the sweater to be, so hopefully with shrinkage it will sit there?

I have hope that I can yet love this sweater.  But for now, I'm a little disappointed.