Not featured at Cantina Bell: Fabric Tacos

One of my fellow sewists in the Craftsy Starlet Suit class called shoulder pads "fabric tacos."  I love that!  Her comment was along the lines of "they must be easy to make, they're just fabric tacos."  So I decided to make my own.  I'm from New Mexico, so tacos come naturally...fabric tacos, hopefully do, too.

I have taken out so many shoulder pads over the years, that I definitely know exactly what they look & feel like. And I wasn't going to put any in this jacket, but Gertie's comment about making the shoulder look more structured got my attention. What's the point of making a tailored jacket & then having saggy shoulders?  At my age the less sagginess the better! 

Here are a few pics of me designing, making & tacking into the jacket my soft tacos...

First, I decided that about 6" would be the right diameter, so I went looking in my kitchen for something about that size.  And viola! a Costco hummous lid, exactly 6" across.  

There are the two 6" diameter circles, cut from a freecycle.org fabric bag.  And when I got my drop-down ironing board, those bits of felt were included.  I'm not sure why, they were sort of being used as packing material, but I was surprised as it seemed like quite old-fashioned packing material.  And they aren't big enough to re-pad the ironing board when/if it ever needs it.  So I decided they'd be my taco filling...

I cut out the 2 half circles from the felt. (It's not wool felt, BTW.)

Then just zigzagged the edge (after some pinning to reduce slippy-ness).  

Aren't they pretty?!  

And this last one shows how I marked the center so I could match it up w/ the shoulder seam, and also how it looks tacked into one of the shoulders.  

On to the lining!