If they're calling for needles that small, you probably got a dk weight yarn. Is there anything besides the needle size?
here are a bunch of shawl/stole patterns that you could look through. Try to focus on ones calling for dk or sport weight yarn--I'm just assuming that's what you have.
www.knitty.com also has some nice free patterns.
If you want to be more sure of your yarn, you could knit a swatch and see how many stitches per inch you get in stockinette on the 3 or 4 needles.