Backyard Leaves gone awry

I've been working on Backyard Leaves (in Karabella Aurora 8), since last winter. It's been a great experience as I progressed from my start as a fairly novice lace knitter who didn't have the foggiest idea what the hell the chart meant to a fairly confident knitter, zipping through those springy leaves. Finally, it was done, and I laid it out in the back patio with pet quail Fiver for scale before blocking it and sewing the two halves together.

This is where the major bummer comes in, because when I went to sew the two halves together, one cast-on had been quite tight, and the other was quite loose, so the seam came out very funky. Then, I tried the thing on and it is LONG! At this point, the thing seems more likely to choke me to death with its long heaviness than to cradle my neck in leafy softness, which is what I was hoping for.

I've had knitted objects come out unsatisfactorily before, but this one really bums me out because it's the ultimate pattern and the ultimate yarn, the FO that I couldn't wait to lay my eyes on. Once I get over my disappointment, I'm just going to rip it a little from both ends and redo the couple of rows around that join and take out a repeat or two at each and, then then maybe Backyard Leaves and I can fall in love like we were meant to.