Terry,

I also think it is individual preference. I, personally, don't like them to look too long. (Reminds me of one of my kids walking around with his shoe laces untied). :-)

That being said, some of my hose have a larger cuff than others, so more or less of the garter will show. Generally, only the fringed part, or slightly more, will show. That photo of my green cabled hose with the blue garters is about as much as I will typically have showing.

There are a couple of things you can do with your extra-long garters. One, you can tie them in such a way as to have a shorter end the knot. Sounds like that's what you are doing now.

The other thing to do would actually be to shorten the garter. If you look carefully at your garters, you'll see that the fringed bit is actually a separate part that has been sewn on to the garter. It would be possible for you to remove the fringe, shorten the garter however much you think it necessary, an reattach the fringe. In this way you can have a custom-length set that should work perfectly for you.