I’m looking at all the b-e-a-utiful cable patterns on knittingfool.com and am seeing that many of the backgrounds are reverse stockinette stitches. How hard would it be to make the backgrounds of cables be either st st or moss or something else?
Also, what’s the deal with knitpick’s harmony cable needles having grooves in them??? It’s so hard to use them for a newbie-to-cables like me!! Do other people like them?
They won’t show up as well on a stockinette background, but many aran cable patterns have seed/moss stitch between the cables.
A cable is often seperated by stitches that look different than the cable itself.
So cables look great on rev. st st.
You can try to place the same cable on st st - but it will mellow out on the st st and not be as outstanding. That is ok for some patterns and destroys others. Sometimes that is even needed.
Get used to cables, then mess around 
Cable needles are often secured against stitches escaping. That may be the reason for groves? I do not know these needles, though.
The reason I think for the reverse stockinette is that the cables ‘pop’ against that background. You could do moss st. easily and I think Debbie Bliss even uses moss st as a background in baby sweaters. Stockinette as a background would really change to look of the cable. It’s done in patterns but it gives a softer twist to the pattern that is different from a traditional cable. Try the different backgrounds on a swatch and see what you think.
I punt on the KP cable needle. I haven’t tried it.
Thanks all!!
I have the harmony cable needles and yeah, because of the grooves, I don’t like them. The yarn doesn’t slide AT ALL. Good idea; bad execution. They made the grooves too deep and the edges of the grooves too square. They need to be shallower and the edges just slightly rounded. That way they’d hold the yarn better than no grooves but would still let it slide when you need it too. Mine stay in my bag now pretty much all the time now. However, I did use them as a substitute stitch holder once for a few stitches and they worked pretty well for that.