Building a marker-planning worksheet for an order

Closing this course: putting four lessons into one worksheet a pattern room can hand to cutting

This page is for anyone who has followed Course 3 (Pattern Making and Marker Fundamentals) and now needs to combine what it taught into one working document. At work, nobody checks a marker plan by remembering four separate lessons in their head. A pattern maker, a merchandiser or a buyer opens one worksheet, reads down it, and decides whether it is ready for cutting or needs sending back. Without that single worksheet, a person can know all four rules separately and still approve a document that answers the wrong question, because no step forced a check that every part uses the same, correct size ratio. This lesson mainly teaches a decision: given a real marker-planning worksheet, is it internally consistent and ready to use for cutting.

This lesson does not teach a new fact about patterns or markers. It assembles lesson 3.1 (what a pattern is), lesson 3.2 (grading a pattern across a size range), lesson 3.3 (what a marker is and how it lays out pattern pieces), and lesson 3.4 (calculating marker efficiency and fabric wastage) into one four-part worksheet, then applies that worksheet to Order A's own fixed figures before a workplace scenario asks whether a submitted worksheet is ready to use.

What you need, and what this lesson does not cover

You need: lessons 3.1 to 3.4 of this course. If you have not read them, the key terms below and the method's steps restate what each one covers.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• combine the four ideas from this course into one complete marker-planning worksheet;
• confirm that a worksheet's size ratio, marker layout and fabric calculation all use the same, correct input;
• recognise a worksheet that is missing a required piece of information, such as the grade rule used;
• catch a worksheet whose arithmetic is correct but whose starting ratio is wrong for the actual order;
• use the completed course workbook as the reference for what a finished worksheet looks like;
• explain to someone else why correct arithmetic does not, by itself, make a worksheet ready for cutting.

Not covered here: how a size set is built from a base size and a grade rule (Course 4, lesson 2), and how a full tech pack assembles this worksheet's figures alongside costing and labelling instructions (Course 5).

Words you will meet in this lesson

A complete marker-planning worksheet states four pieces of information, and each one must match the order it serves

A complete marker-planning worksheet states: the base pattern and grade rule used, the marker's size ratio and layout description, and the calculated marker wastage, efficiency and total fabric requirement. Building this worksheet means confirming each of these four pieces of information is present and internally consistent. A size ratio that does not match the order's actual size breakdown, for example, makes the rest of the worksheet's fabric calculation wrong even if the arithmetic itself is correct.

The shapes a marker-planning worksheet takes, and why each variant matters

A worksheet missing a piece and a worksheet with a mismatched input fail for different reasons, but both leave cutting without a document it can safely rely on.

Cedar & Co. asks Delta Garments' pattern room for a marker-planning worksheet for its new domestic T-shirt batch

Cedar & Co., a local brand with 12 shops, is planning a domestic Make to Stock batch of T-shirts loosely based on Order A's construction but with its own size ratio. Cedar & Co. buys its garments from Delta Garments, the factory that also makes Order A and Order B (the denim jeans order), so it asks Delta Garments' pattern room to submit a complete marker-planning worksheet for the new batch before cutting can be scheduled.

Order A itself remains the fixed reference: single jersey T-shirt, 15,000 pieces, sizes S M L XL in a 1:2:2:1 ratio, with a marker built to 93% efficiency. Cedar & Co.'s new batch reuses Order A's basic construction, but Cedar & Co.'s own planned ratio for this batch is S M L XL, 1:3:3:1, a different split of quantity across the same four sizes. Delta Garments' pattern room must build the new marker layout and fabric calculation around Cedar & Co.'s own ratio, not Order A's.

Order A's own worksheet: a complete, internally consistent reference example

Order A's own fixed figures show what a complete, internally consistent worksheet states, before the workplace scenario below introduces a mismatch to spot.

Every figure in this worksheet traces back to the same size ratio (S M L XL, 1:2:2:1) and the same 15,000-piece total. Because all four parts agree with one another and with the order's own actual figures, this worksheet is ready for cutting.

Check any marker-planning worksheet for completeness and consistency, in order

1. Confirm the pattern and grade rule are stated. Check that the worksheet names the base pattern used and which grade rule produced the other sizes from it.
2. Read the order's own actual size ratio from the order itself, not from the worksheet. Note the size split the order specifies, independent of what the worksheet claims.
3. Compare that actual ratio against the ratio stated in the worksheet's marker-layout section. Confirm the two match exactly, size for size.
4. Confirm the fabric calculation uses that same, correct ratio. Check that the wastage, efficiency and total fabric figures were calculated from the ratio confirmed in step 3, not a different one.
5. Decide whether the worksheet is ready for cutting. Approve it only once all four parts are present and every part uses the order's own correct ratio.

Checking only the arithmetic, without checking whether the inputs are the right ones for this order

A common mistake is checking only whether the multiplication in a marker-planning worksheet works out correctly, without checking whether the inputs themselves, the size ratio in particular, are the right ones for this specific order. A calculation can be internally consistent from start to finish and still answer the wrong question if it was built on a mismatched input. Cutting fabric from a marker built on the wrong size ratio produces the wrong mix of finished garment sizes for the actual order, a mismatch usually discovered only once cut pieces are counted and compared against the real order.

• A complete worksheet states four things: pattern and grade rule, size ratio and marker layout, wastage and efficiency, and total fabric requirement.
• A worksheet's arithmetic can be entirely correct and the worksheet still be wrong if it used the wrong size ratio.
• Order A's own marker runs at 93% efficiency, the complement of its fixed 7% wastage.
• Always compare the ratio stated in the worksheet against the order's own actual ratio before trusting the fabric figure.
• A worksheet missing the grade rule is incomplete even if its marker and fabric figures look correct.
• The same four-part check applies to any order's worksheet, not only Order A's.

Delta Garments' pattern room submits a marker-planning worksheet using Order A's size ratio instead of Cedar & Co.'s own planned ratio

Cedar & Co.'s pattern room request reaches Delta Garments, and Delta Garments' pattern room submits a marker-planning worksheet for the new domestic T-shirt batch.

• Cedar & Co.'s actual planned ratio for this batch is S M L XL, 1:3:3:1.
• The submitted worksheet's marker-layout section states a size ratio of S M L XL, 1:2:2:1.
• The submitted worksheet's fabric calculation is built on that same 1:2:2:1 ratio.
• The pattern and grade rule sections of the submitted worksheet are complete and correctly documented.

Is this worksheet ready to use for cutting? Decide before you open the decision.

Marker-planning worksheet: the completed course tool

This course's workbook is the worksheet itself. Its Marker Efficiency sheet has rows for the marker wastage percentage, the marker efficiency percentage, the fabric used per piece, and the fabric needed for the whole order, each with an input column and a calculated result column. The example rows already filled in show Order A's own figures: 7% wastage, 93% efficiency, 0.205 kg per piece, 3,075 kg for the whole order. Download the workbook, replace the size ratio and quantity with your own order's actual figures, and confirm every part of the worksheet uses that same ratio before sending it on for approval.

Download the Marker-planning worksheet (Excel)

Course 4: Measurement, Fit and Size Sets, lesson 1

You now have one completed worksheet that confirms a marker's pattern, grade rule, size ratio and fabric calculation are all consistent with the order they serve. The next course opens the measurement step itself: the standard body points a garment spec records and how a fit is judged against them. Back to the course map