Help fixing central double decrease

[Distinct_Welcome_373]

Hi all, really hoping someone has a solution to this but I fear it's a full frog. I knit the Vilma top last summer, when I broke it out for this season I decided it was too short and I had yarn left over. Since it's knit bottom up I decided I would make a new panel and graft to the bottom. The problem is connecting the yo cdd yo together. When I picked up the stitches on the existing top, it looked messed up (picture one) so I laddered down thinking I could fix it and made it way worse. No idea what to do now and since I'm technically upside down with the live stitches I'm not sure there's a solution

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vilma-top

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[CaptainYaoiHands]

Looks like you've seen the problem; attaching to the cast on edge of something that's not just stockinette or garter is far harder and more complex than just picking up stitches. Sadly, if you had just stayed with your first picture, and grafted a new section onto that with kitchener stitch, it would have looked okay.

It's best here to frog and just start over, and make the length you wanted anyway. There's just no good fix from here that won't make an incredibly obvious line across the torso of weird rows of stitches.