Sweater transformation - is it enough?

I have had the same sewing machine since I was a teenager. My mom bought it for me and taught me how to use it. It served me well for many years, but lately, it gave me some problems. For example, it would zig, but it wouldn't zag. Tired of hearing me curse like a sailor when I worked on my projects, my wonderful husband got me a fancy new machine for Christmas. At first, I was intimidated by the 600 different stitches it could do(!!!), but I figured I needed to dive in sometime. I decided to try to make something like this.

I had this silver-y cowl-neck sweater that was the perfect candidate for this refashion, as the neck was itchy and needed to go.

I did my best to carefully unpick the stitching holding the cowl onto the sweater. 

Despite my care, though, I ended up with this raggedy edge along the neck of the sweater.

 I used the cowl part to test out different stitches to bind the frayed edge. I settled on a regular zig-zag stitch along the very edge, now that I could zig and zag, then folded a half inch under and stitched it down with a stem stitch for stretch fabrics. With the neck finished, I started working on the zipper. I took an 18" gray zipper I got on clearance and carefully pinned it down the center front on the outside of the sweater.

I basted down either side of it, halfway between the teeth and the zipper edge. Then I carefully cut in between the stitches on the inside of the sweater to open it up.

I folded the extra sweater material down on each side and stitched it in place with a wide zigzag that went just to the edge of the zipper. The last step was to fold over the excess zipper tape over the top and sew it down on the inside of the sweater. When I was done, it looked like this. 

I wore it this way once already. I am trying to decide if I should leave it as is or attach some black ribbon or leather strips to make it look more like my inspiration piece. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!   

-Amy