I want to post these to sort of thank the kind people here who got me through them - without answers to the couple of very key questions I asked, I don't think I would have been able to finish. :notworthy:

I learned a lot from these socks. Like,
you really *should* make a gauge swatch. No, really.
white wool, like white polyester, shows every flaw. choose your yarn carefully.
drinking and knitting do not always mix well.
but sometimes, a drink may be vital to actually completing said knitting. it helps with the grim determination. :lol:
it is vital to knit something you're interested in. I really wanted to wear these socks.
if you're going to modify a pattern, whatever you remember doing on sock A will not be what you actually do on sock B. write it down.Anyway, here are the socks in question. They're more or less riddled with flaws, but still - actual, wearable socks! Yay! Thanks knittinghelp gang! :)

Wow!!! those are fantastic! They ovbiously took a lot of work!

Nice socks! What a lot of work -- I feel like I want to die after doing even short socks. Very nice! :)

Great job! I've never done any that long. It must have taken quite a while! And from experience - no one but you will ever notice the mistakes!

Those are BEAUTIFUL!! Great job!! TFS

Gorgeous socks AND one of the most entertaining posts!

:roflhard:

:roflhard:

They look great!

Aw, thanks guys! They did sort of take forever. The first one took half of Buffy: Season One and all of season Two. But then the second one only took Season Three, and I didn't work on it every day. :)

The first one took ages and ages because I spent hours staring at the directions going :shock::shrug::think::??.... "wrap? wtfruitbat is 'wrap'"? :lol:

And then, of course, posting here and then checking back every 3.5 seconds to see if anyone answered my questions. (Seriously, thank you guys so much. :muah:) I think it took me a couple of hours of staring to figure out how to turn the heel. And I'm a small, tight knitter, so it takes ages...I'm hoping I'll speed up with practice. (If this isn't going to happen, you guys just go ahead and lie to me...)

I do have to say the socks are *almost* the same size. The one looks much bigger because I finished it first and tried it on about a dozen times. The second one is a little smaller. See above notes re: patterns and drinking...;-)

:cheering: Very beautiful socks! :cheering:

Those are gorgeous--great job!

Gorgeous. I don't see any mistakes! I'm glad the second one went faster. My mom got me some sock yarn, so I'm going to start some socks, soon!

Wow! Those are beautiful!!! I'm not quite ready to invest the time to do full-length socks.

Now you need to do a pair of footies to really enjoy quick sock-making!

GREAT job!!

Wow, great job! My first socks didn't look that good.