Can anyone tell me what’s going on here and where I went wrong? I’m making a sweater for my son. Cast on 45 stitches. To start off I did 8 rows. I did K2P2 for a row, and since I ended on purling, I figured that meant I would P2K2 the next row. I did this four times to make 8 rows.

But for some reason, only part of the bottom looks correct? (Circled in red at bottom) And the other half shows no pattern whatsoever.

Then with the body of the sweater, I was alternating between knitting and purling. I did P1K1 for the whole row and ended on a purl, so I always started and ended with a pure stitch. So why does only a small portion of the body show the stitching (circled in red) and the rest just looks like a bumpy mess??

Thought it was just the yarn and needles I was using until I noticed some small portions of my knit actually look as they should.

Any insight??