Making Shoulder PadsMaking shoulder pads isn’t difficult. Just a little time consuming. The picture on the left is of the original shoulder pad that I used for a guide and of the new pair. The original one at the top is a ready-made pad and came without the pad-stitching. I add that to all my shoulder pads before using them in a garment. Your shoulder pads will stay together longer if you do this step first. It’s one of the biggest complaints that comes up about women’s jackets returned from the dry cleaners. The shoulder pads get all bunched up in the cleaning process and the customers seem to feel it’s the dry cleaners’ fault. But it never happens in men’s jackets because they are secured with pad-stitching from the tailor when it’s made. Try doing this even to the small lined pads that you would put into a blouse. Just make sure the stitching is loose enough not to pull into the layers and make indentations.

The first step is to decide on the shape of the shoulder pad, especially on the sleeve edge to get the right curvature. If it matches the curvature exactly, then the shoulder pad will fit better. Overlap your front and back jacket pattern pieces on the exact shoulder seam. If you’ve altered the slope of the shoulder, then be sure to use the new shoulder seam. Draw the shoulder pad shape on the tissue with a fatter front width and a narrower back width. If you have a ready-made pad, you can use that for a guide. Otherwise, the fullest width should be about 4-5 inches and the length about 9-10 inches from end to end.

Make a paper template from the shape you drew. If desired, you can square off the front to include a “chest shield”. Menswear shoulder pads always include this shape. This will give more support to the hollow area that is common for women’s bodies. This outer layer can be made of hair canvas or a light-weight crinoline instead of fusible fleece. Make sure to mark the position of the shoulder seam for placement of the shoulder pad.

Decide on the thickness of the shoulder pad you desire by stacking up some layers of the fusible fleece to see how many layers it takes to make the thickness. Just remember that fusing the layers together will compress the thickness to slightly less than what you started with.

When you’ve decided how many layers you need, draw that many layers on your paper template with each layer being about ½ inch narrower than the other, but always keeping the same edge at the sleeve edge so they can stack one on top of the other forming the shoulder pad shape.

Cut a pair of each of these shapes from the fusible fleece. This is so you will end up with a right and left shoulder pad. Fuse one layer at a time to the next, largest to smallest, leaving the second largest piece till last, and lining it up exactly with the sleeve edge. The second largest shape will end up being placed fusible side facing the other layers so that it will encase the layers together. This picture has an extra layer so is cut about ¼ inch apart if more thickness is needed.

When fusing the layers together, make sure you use a “sacrificial” pressing cloth that can be thrown away when done. The fusing agent will get on it and may damage another garment if it gets on it. Remove the pressing cloth quickly from each layer so the fusing agent doesn’t have time to cool and stick hard to the shoulder pad.

I like to “shape” the shoulder pad as the pressing of layers is done. You can see in this picture that I am pressing on only one side of the shoulder pad at a time and lifting the other to create the curve needed to shape over the shoulder area. Do the other half the same way.

When fusing the outside of the shoulder pad, keep the curve intact by shaping over a tailors ham or the edge of your ironing board, again one half of the pad at a time. Using your template, mark the shoulder line on the completed pad with a fabric pen or thread. Make sure your pressing cloth covers the ironing board.

After the shoulder pad layers are fused, you need to secure them together with the pad-stitching. You can usually see through layers if held up to a light to make sure you catch each layer with a row of basting stitches. In the thick areas, send your needle straight through and come back up from the other side the same way. This ensures that all layers are caught.

Complete the pad-stitching around the entire shoulder pad. Knots aren’t necessary at the end of your threads since they can just be buried in some layers.

The completed shoulder pads! If you need to “soften” the outer edges a little, you can use pinking shears on the outer edges only, not the sleeve edge. With your regular scissors, trim away any extra fleece that may have shifted out into the sleeve edge to make them all the same at the edge.