Less than perfect

The maximizer in me just won't let it go.  The continuing saga of "Sojourner."
First, you can see what happens when I re-knit with yarn that has been kinked from blocking. And it "almost" looks like I twisted the stitches I picked when continuing the stockinette.  (I don't think I did...) The stitches have a different shape. Fingers crossed that will resolve itself with a second blocking.

By the way, you are seeing the back neck edge with seed stitch continuing from the front button bands. Big question:  How do you make a decent, discrete join where they meet?  (It's not in the instructions, my friends!)
I took a tip from Nancie Wiseman.  She wrote in The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques which is my go-to source of "how-to's".  She doesn't address seed stitch, but there was a kitchener method of using waste yarn that I thought might be helpful.  I added an extra row to both ends using waste yarn, and attempted to duplicate stitch over it.  Here's what it looked like (not a pretty sight)!

Loose ends EVERYWHERE!  And what I got? That's in the first picture.  It looks OK at the top edge, but I must have missed something at the first few stitches.  (Yes, lavender is difficult to photograph... every picture is a different color.  Really, it's all the same.)

Here I am, modeling my sweater, which is totally wearable, and feels YUMMY WONDERFUL on this chilly day, and I don't WANT to take it off (WAAAHHH!) to undo the "messed up kitchener"... (pout).