Small Swatches

I swatched for the Flirty Ruffles Shawl!!! It was such fun to actually have to concentrate on a tough project, it's been a while. You can click here for a pre-blocked picture, or here for a post-blocking picture of it. Please note the mistake I made in the middle of the swatch. Yes, that is a misplaced eyelet. Feel free to heckle me. I can take it.

I am a tight knitter so my swatch is about an inch smaller than what it was supposed to be, but I still like how it looks. I probably like how it looks more with this needle size than if I were to go up a size. I'm also fairly short so I am thinking that I might not need to match my gauge to make sure I get a wide enough shawl, any width would probably do the trick. I might swatch on a size up just to see what I can get out of it, but I am thinking it would probably be okay to go ahead and make the shawl at the smaller gauge anyway.

Does anyone have any warnings on this? This is my first shawl and I'm just wondering if gauge really matters for this type of thing. Thanks in advance!