Next steps after your first pattern

What you will learn

Briefly review the path you have covered in the course and choose, with good judgment, your next step: go deeper into production at scale, learn to think in complete collections, or start producing right away with ready-made patterns.

Before you start

This is the last lesson of the course, so ideally you have already gone through the earlier modules: fundamentals, the base skirt pattern, the base pants pattern, and fabric and fit errors. If you are missing one it doesn't matter; this lesson still helps you decide where to go next.

Concept

This lesson doesn't teach you a new patternmaking technique: it is a point of arrival. You have already covered the road from understanding what patternmaking is to building your first base patterns and understanding how fabric and fit errors affect the final result. Now the question changes: where do you go from here? There is no single right answer. Depending on what you want to do with what you have learned, a different path makes sense: going deeper into production at scale, learning to think in complete collections, or simply starting to produce right away. All three paths exist in parallel within Modeltex, and they are not mutually exclusive.

Lesson content

The path you have already covered

You started with the fundamentals: what patternmaking is, how it differs from industrial patternmaking, what tools you work with and how to take body measurements correctly and repeatably.

With that foundation you built your first patterns: a skirt (front and back, darts that absorb the difference between waist and hip, and variations such as the straight, pencil, A-line and pleated) and a pair of pants, where the rise carries most of the difficulty. Finally you saw that the pattern is not enough on its own: the fabric you choose changes the fit, and you learned to read typical errors, such as wrinkles at the rise, to diagnose and correct them before grading.

Path 1: if you want to produce at scale

Up to here you have worked made-to-measure: a pattern designed for one specific person. If your goal is to make the same style in several sizes to sell, the next step is learning to grade (progress) that pattern to a complete size range, work digitally and build the marker to cut in production.

That is exactly what you see in the Industrial Patternmaking course at Modeltex Lab: size grading, digital patternmaking and marker making, designed for people who already know how to build a base pattern and want to move on to producing in series.

Path 2: if you want to think like a collection designer

Another possibility is that what interests you is not an isolated style, but building complete lines: thinking about several styles together, how they combine with each other, and by what criteria a collection — not just a single garment — is put together.

That approach, more oriented toward design than toward the engineering of the pattern itself, is the one developed in the Fashion Design course at Modeltex Lab.

Path 3: if you want to produce right away

If you don't want to wait to develop your own patterns from scratch, Modeltex has a catalog of more than 2,000 ready-made patterns, with the complete size range and approved with a sewn sample, in formats such as PDF A4, PDF plotter and CAD formats (DXF/AAMA, Optitex, Audaces).

You can start producing with those patterns now, while in parallel you keep training in grading or in collection design.

Practical example

Someone who finishes this course with real customer orders can handle that production today with patterns from the Modeltex catalog (which already come graded and approved), while starting the Industrial Patternmaking course in parallel so that, later on, they can develop and grade their own designs without always depending on an outside catalog.

Common mistakes

Thinking that a made-to-measure pattern (made for one person) already works as-is to sell in several sizes: A made-to-measure pattern is not graded. To produce the same style across a size range you have to grade it, which is exactly what the Industrial Patternmaking course teaches.

Waiting to master the whole process (design, grading, marker making) before daring to produce something: There is no need to wait: the Modeltex catalog has patterns with the complete size range, approved with a sewn sample, so you can start producing while you keep training.

Modeltex tip

These three paths are not mutually exclusive and don't have to be followed in a fixed order. Many people start selling with catalog patterns while taking Industrial Patternmaking in parallel, so they can develop and grade their own designs later on.

Exercise

Answer for yourself, in writing: do you want to produce at scale what you already know how to make, do you want to learn to think in complete collections, or do you want to start producing right away with ready-made patterns? Choose one of the three paths in this lesson (you can choose more than one) and write down what your next concrete step will be this week.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to finish this whole course before starting Industrial Patternmaking?

It is recommended, but not mandatory: having taken Made-to-Measure Patternmaking helps because you already know what a base pattern is, but Industrial Patternmaking is designed so that you can start it anyway.

Do the patterns in the Modeltex catalog already come graded to several sizes?

Yes: the catalog has the complete size range and each pattern is approved with a sewn sample; it is not just a drawing that hasn't been tested.

Can I follow more than one path at the same time?

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive. It is common to start producing with the catalog while, in parallel, taking the Industrial Patternmaking course or the Fashion Design course.

I don't know yet which of the three paths to choose. What do I do?

It is normal not to have it clear right after finishing the course. If you have to decide something now, the catalog is the lowest-friction path to start producing while you work out whether you are more interested in grading or in collection design.

Summary

This course took you from the fundamentals of patternmaking to building your first base patterns (skirt and pants) and understanding how fabric and fit errors affect the result. From here there are three possible paths, not mutually exclusive: Industrial Patternmaking if you want to produce at scale (size grading, digital work, marker making), Fashion Design if you want to think in complete collections, or the Modeltex catalog if you want to produce right away with ready-made patterns, graded and approved with a sample.

Go back to the full course or ask the Modeltex Lab AI.