WIP, Or Maybe Not

I've knitted up a Clapotis swatch (ha ha ha), but so far, I'm not really thrilled with the puddling.

Actually, I think it's kind of interesting -- check out the symmetry -- but it's not the effect I was hoping to achieve. I keep buying yarn that looks fantastic as a skein, but then it gets all stripey on me, instead of being subtly multihued.

The big blocky stripes are fighting too much with the texture-stripes created by the dropped stitches... is there some way I could have foreseen this, from looking at the yarn itself? Must have something to do with the length of the color repeats; is there a rule of thumb for determining whether yarn stripes?

This will probably get ripped back, which is a pity as it was going to be a Christmas present for my sister (and it's 20% done already!) In the meantime I'll just make a baby hat (T-4 days) for a coworker.