Figuring out how big a knot needs to be and the length of cord needed is somewhat of an art – you need to think about the object being covered, the material being used, and how tight you tie.

You can learn more about using AGM to make size estimates here: AGM: Strand Width & Strand Gap.

For now, let’s say I’m practicing and want to make something like the knot below. It doesn’t matter now, but this happens to be a 3-strand, type I pineapple.

There are lots of ways to come up with a starting point … I know I want 3 colors … I’m using a 6B 7P Turk’s Head as my base because it’s a nice practice size … And I’m making a type I because they’re my favorite.

If you’re new to tying, here’s some resources that might help:

• Turk’s Head Size Reference
• Pineapple Knot Type Reference

This gives me some information I can use to move forward:

This image highlights the settings needed for pineapple knots. Because they’re common to every knot, I cover certain settings in separate posts.

• Colors & Shadow Color can help visualize a knot and make it easier to see crossings.
• Strand Width & Strand Gap can be used to make the pattern image easier to work from or to estimate knot size & cord length needed.

I was reading about row & column coding just the other day and I still don’t understand it. And please don’t ask me what ‘shifted bight’ means.

Fortunately, John Allwine was kind enough to just tell me what to enter for the Column Coding , Nested Bights, and Shifted Bights fields 🙂

Important: Be sure to click the Column Coding and the Pineapple Grid buttons at least once and each time you change these fields.

Once the basic settings are in place, there’s two ways to generate a pineapple knot. The first way is to grab the lower-right corner of the pattern image and start resizing.

This is super fun and a great way to stumble on cool patterns – you could easily do it for 10 minutes before realizing you haven’t found a pineapple.

Okay, maybe it won’t take you 10 minutes to notice there’s some info below the image that updates as the pattern is resized.

• Bights we know from way back at the beginning – there are 6 nested bights with 3 strands each for a total of 18 bights.
• If working backwards from an image, then you can count the parts … Or maybe you intuitively know that the 6B 7P TH is going to surround two 6B 5P THs, for a total of 17 parts.
• And a final hint is that columns will always be a multiple of the number of strands being used – not every multiple, but a multiple.

Even with some starting info, resizing the pattern to find the right size and type pineapple is hit-or-miss. It’s why I’ve put together “recipes”.

• AGM Pineapple Knot Recipes

I’ve embedded the sheet below, but suggest opening the file directly. To find a recipe:

1. Select the 2 Strand, 3 Strand, or 4 Strand sheet.
2. Filter column A for the number of nested bights – here it’s 6.
3. Then filter column J for the Type – here it’s type I.

The remaining columns provide everything AGM needs – rows, columns, bights, parts, nested & shifted bights, and column coding – resize the image until the dynamic information matches the recipe.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! You have a run list. AGM offers two formats – toggle the Consolidate Overs and Unders checkbox to view.

Some knots start with 1 or more turns around the mandrel. When this is true, the consolidated instructions will have it as the first line – it is NOT shown in the un-consolidated instructions. This knot doesn’t have any starting turns.

Whew – made it! Advanced Grid Maker isn’t the most intuitive tool, but with a little know-how, it’s a powerful way to visualize knots, make estimates, and generate run lists.

Pineapples aren’t nearly as hard as they may appear on first glance and I hope this helps you in some way. Got questions or feedback? Let me know in the comments below.