I had a really tough time trying to figure out what this pattern reminded me of. Someone said it reminded them of a maze, so we'll go with that. I decided to try something different, so the bottoms of these socks are solid red. In order to make sure the top wouldn't be too long, every other time I did the white rows across the top, I also did red rows across the bottom. It turned out to be way more fiddly than I expected, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. If I did the needles on circulars, with the top half of the sock consistently on one needle and the bottom on the other, that would have made it easier. On double points I found it more tricky than I expected. Also, it became more challenging to tie the top to the bottom consistently. Ideally I would knit the pattern across the top in the white, then purl across the bottom with the red. Next I'd twist the yarns together, before purling back across the top with the white and knitting back across the bottom with the red. I'm not sure I remembered to do that more than a handful of times though. I played with several other techniques to make the transition between top and bottom seamless, and in the end I pretty much decided it was too much of a pain to bother with. If I really wanted the solid bottom with this pattern in future, I'd probably modify the pattern, and make the long white stretches only one row thick, while also making the long red stretches three rows thick. By thus decreasing the ratio of white to red I should be able to only keep the white on the top without having to do make-up red rows on the bottom.
I ended up working on these socks while attending a reunion at Cornell, and was able to claim that I was doing red and white socks on purpose! It wasn't true, of course-this yarn (cascade heritage sock yarn) happened to be the next thing on top of my stash, so I'd picked it, and I'd already used it for the handcuff socks last week. I still have some left over, so it will appear again, but two pairs in a row with the same colors is enough.