I'd like to supersize it

Today, my friends, you will be getting a 2 for 1 blog. A product review and a finished up project blog. I will be out of town for Finished up Friday. Off to the Denver area I go from Thursday to return on Sunday. Hopefully to work on some fingerless mitts in the meantime. But I have been furiously knitting and have finished one shawl. It started out as the Weekend Shawl, knit in the color black in Knit Picks Gloss. I frogged it out because I just could not make the increase and decrease the designer requested work. So I was winging it. Then I got halfway done and decided I didn't like the way I was winging it either. So I tried it her way and finally got it right. I worked on it tediously. I followed it down to the letter. So I got down to the lace portion, followed it down to the letter. And you know what?! It didn't turn out looking anything like the picture. Not one gosh darn bit. The straight lines were not straight. I even placed markers, redid my counts, recounted my lines. Everything was perfect. So I must assume there is an error in the pattern. But since I was under a time crunch (I had to have it done in a week), I decided to do only 1 repeat of the Sunday lace border, and called it a day. So, personally, the only beefs with the pattern I have is that I think it is wonky, the picture is deceiving (if you really want a shawl that reaches to the bottom of your fingertips, you should have 140 sts in between markers, not 70),  and there is NO WAY you could finish this in a weekend. Unless you are a mindless zombie insomniac who gets fed through a tube. I also wet blocked it, which I thought was helpful. And it turned out to be a pleasant surprise, because I changed the form to make it look like a black butterfly instead of a horribly awry wonky peacock. So I have renamed it the black swallowtail. Not bad for my first lace shawl.
Now for the product review. Knit picks' Gloss. It is a lace weight yarn, made of 70% merino wool, 30% silk. You have 440 yards to the hank. It is hand wash /dry flat. It is currently available at: http://www.knitpicks.com/ at the price of $4.29 a hank. Which made this shawl roughly $8.58. Not half bad. The loft is nice and the stitch definition isn't too bad either. If you are looking for a lacy, ethereal, cobweby (is that a word?), traditional look, this is probably not for you. But it does make a lovely, squishy shawl. Good for average warmth on a lightly breezy evening. I would give it 3.75 out of 5 stars.