The Beginning of the Sudberry Cardi, and Wedding Gift Regrets

I offically began swatching for my Burberry Cardi knock off last week (which I've decided to call the "Sudberry Cardi"- Because I'm from Sudbury, Ontario, and I like to pretend I'm clever that way). I decided to go with KnitPicks Merino Style: It's not quite the fibre that the original is, but the alpaca/silk blend seems like it might get saggy. I'm lying, my real reason for not going with the alpaca/silk blend is because this is an experiment and the alpaca/silk bumped up the cost of the experiment substantially. This way, if the whole thing refuses to come together, I'll have only wasted $30 and tons of my time, instead of $60 and tons of my time. If it goes well, I might knit one in black in the alpaca/silk, and compare. Hey, you gotta dream.
I've begun working on the back panel, which I figured for the xs size, would be 15.5" inches across the back. I based this calculation on dividing the bust/hip width (which is 31") by 2 (for front and back). I knew that I was going to add 2 stitches to each side to allow for seaming, and I got gauge at 3.75 mm needles. So I cast on for 89 stitches. Originally I had cast on about ten more stitches, but it was too big, so I frogged and took out 10. It's all better now.
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I'm going to a wedding this afternoon (well, when I started writing this blog post it was Saturday- so bear with me on the timeline), and was naturally rushing around yesterday to buy a wedding gift for the happy couple. I had it in my head that a lovely throw blanket from Pottery Barn would be good, but I became disgusted when I saw these:
And they were retailing for $115 (CAD), which is beyond ridiculous. By the way, I checked it out on their website- it's %100 acrylic. What the muffin are they thinking?!

I realize that I now need to approach the announcement of every event that I know I'll be bringing a gift to with the question: 'what can I knit for this?' I'm kicking myself for not thinking about knitting an afghan for Steph and Steve ages ago, when the engagement announcement went out. Instead, I went to Williams Sonoma and spent waaaay too much money on very fancy Peugeot salt and pepper grinders. I find myself hoping against hope that they'll return them, and realize that the amount of money that I spent on them is indicative of how stupid I felt for not starting on knitting them an afghan.

Designer Knits- they are asking for it....

I, like many who have gone before me, have fallen in love with a stupidly expensive sweater:
This is a $650 (US) Burberry sweater. That's right, they are charging $650 for garter stitch. But as you know, being a knitter means you've been behind the curtain at Oz, you know how the whole thing works. So I did what any sane knitter would do- I took that obscenely expensive sweater into the change room,whipped out my measuring tape, and made a lot of notes, very quickly:
The xs size stats are as follows:
- Length: 18.5", Bust: 31", Sleeve: 12", Waist: 29"
- Gauge: 6sts/inch (body), 7sts/inch (mandarin collar)
- Belt is a 1"-wide tube of stockinette, pressed flat. belt loops are also stockinette, sewn on.
- 2" high mandarin collar
- Edges of front panels have slipped stitch edges
- Hem has some sort of tublar cast on
- Buttons are 3" apart
- Raglan sleeves

It gets it's cuddly softness from being a squishy 70% alpaca/30% silk blend. What do you guys think? Did I miss anything in my stats gathering?