Hawaii in July - FREE Breadfruit Block

The breadfruit is the symbol of abundance. To try your hand at fold, cut and sew appliqué you can use the breadfruit pattern. But what does it look like?

Breadfruit Block: 18"

The method for cutting out this appliqué block is to first do some paper folding. I shared some of those steps the other day when I showed the Lover's Knot. The Breadfruit block has an 18-1/2" background square. I also cut an 18" square of freezer paper for the appliqué design.

We need to fold the template into 8ths. Look at these diagrams from Quilt Magazine 25 years ago (and they still work!)

The key is to make sure your pattern is aligned as shown in Diagram 7. I'm going to show you my own folded sample. I folded my paper as shown in Diagrams 1-6. Then I cut out the paper template in the pattern and clipped it to the folded template material (I like to use Reynold's Freezer paper). Since I am going to stitch this by machine, I will remove the seam allowances in gray. If you want to stitch by hand, leave them on.

You can see how I cut it out here and the excess paper.

Template cut out and ready to open up

And what does it look like now? I have my 18" square of blue Fossil Fern fabric ready for the template. I prepared the back using Pellon featherweight fusible interfacing. I wanted to stabilize the raw edges, but didn't want the fusible on both sides.

Breadfruit freezer paper template ironed to appliqué fabric

I cut it out and here's what the wrong side looks like with the fusible interfacing:

Back of Breadfruit appliqué

Now it's ready to go onto the yellow Fossil Fern 18-1/2" background square. I gently creased the diagonals, vertical and horizontal lines on the BG square to help with perfect alignment. (Yes, there's a seam in my BG fabric - all I had was a long quarter).

Breadfruit appliqué aligned and waiting for my machine stitching

And here it is with some borders.

Breadfruit Block

Click on those links for a free one page pdf for the Breadfruit Block. It will be the 1/8 template. Practice folding your paper and cutting before you work with your fabric. Take your time and you will have an authentic, gorgeous Hawaiian block for everyone to admire!