WIP Wednesday: A little something from the back of my mind

I've been tossing around the idea of using an extremely large braided cable as the primary pattern of a scarf for a while now, and after some ego inflation from some of my friends, I decided to just do a "little" swatch to see how this might play out.  The yarn is 100% wool from Plymouth, one of my favorite makers of fine wool, and if it looks like a grapey purple to you in the picture, it's actually lilac and my camera just didn't want to express the reality of my project.  So sorry. I'm still playing around with the number of stitches for each section of the braid, and I'm not sure that I like this as it stands--I think I want something more pillowy than  this for each turn in the braid.  This is about 24 "--I guess that means I can call this swatch done now.  This is also my pitiful attempt at reducing my stash which, over the last two months, has grown out of control!  Please share with me your thoughts on this cable.  I am also thinking of creating my own group on Ravelry and doing a scarf knit-along with this pattern when I get it finalized.  The pattern would be free.  Any thoughts on this?

Rocket has informed me that I am now "grounded" from purchasing any more yarn (but she didn't say anything about not winning more!).

Just for a little example, I now have yarn for 13 pair of socks waiting to be knitted, which totally flies in the face of knitting the sweater that took my breath away (of course the sleeves are odd and I will have to make some kind of adjustment) and I will have to get started on--a deep blackberry Peruvian wool is on its way to my doorstep right now, all 18 skeins of it!  Oh, and two sweaters on the needles, an an Envy scarf half done--gotta tell you about that little miracle in a minute--and two sweaters in the queue before the blackberry sweater, and 2 pair of fingertip-less gloves for the boys for fall and winter camping--that wool came yesterday.  "Lucy, you have some knitting to do!" Here's the project that will take me at least a year to finish:

A word about the miracles of online ordering.  I ordered the asparagus merino from Knit Picks about a month ago that I started the Envy pattern with, and then I ran out.  I really need two more skeins, I think, so I had to order more.  Being unusually optimistic for my nature, I decided to order two more and haven't even once thought about tearing the whole thing out even though the likelihood of getting two more skeins via online ordering in the same lot is what, zero?  But, ahh, serendipity ... two skeins arrived yesterday in EXACTLY the same dye lot.  I did a little dance.  My children continue to think I need therapy for this yarn obsession I have.