AGM: Pineapple Knots
Advanced Grid Maker
I’ve been tying knots for 5 years and can only do a few from my head. Video and image tutorials are great, but I find run lists to be the most helpful. Here’s how to use Advanced Grid Maker to create run lists for pineapple knots. Fair warning: it isn’t hard, but it isn’t straight-forward either.
How Big?
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:
This gives me some information I can use to move forward:
Settings
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.

Column Coding & Pineapple Grid
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.
Column Coding | Nested Bights | Shifted Bights | |
---|---|---|---|
2 Strands | OUUO | 2 | 1 |
3 Strands | OUUUOO | 3 | 1 |
4 Strands | OUUUUOOO | 4 | 2 |
Generate the Pattern: Grab & Resize
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.
Generate the Pattern: Recipes
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”.

I’ve embedded the sheet below, but suggest opening the file directly. To find a recipe:
- Select the 2 Strand, 3 Strand, or 4 Strand sheet.
- Filter column A for the number of nested bights – here it’s 6.
- 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.
Run List
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.

Wrap
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.