Okay I hate covering any cake bigger than an 8inch. I had to cover my first board today (16inch square) and it was a nightmare. It is a little bumpy in parts but I am hoping once the cake and bits and pieces are on it no one will notice.
I have to cover the bottom tier which is a 10 inch (is that 25cm?) square and I am sooooo scared I am going to muck it up. Ive covered the top two tiers ( 8 inch & 6 inch) and even they gave me grief. I just dont feel like fondant is my friend at the moment.
Can anyone give me some tips on covering larger cakes? Please? It is really hot sticky an dhumid here at the moment which isnt heloing things either.
Thanks for any help you can give.
Kathryn
Kathryn,
There are a couple of things that I do that I find work for me.
Firstly if it's really hot and humid, work early in the morning before the heat sets in, or if you have an airconditioner, then use it!
I always use spacers for my fondant. They are just two peices of wood 4mm thick that I roll the fondant out in between, that way, the fondant will be a uniform thickness. I also roll my fondant straight on to my kitchen table, which is nice and straight and has a high polished surface, but I also spray it first with oil, lightly.
When I need to lift the fondant I place my rolling pin on the two spacers across the fondant, pick up one edge of the fondant carefully with my finger tips, and flip it over the rolling pin. Then I pick up the rolling pin, move to the cake, lay the fondant on it and gently roll it off the rolling pin.
In humid conditions the fondant can get very soft so don't roll out a lot of excess, measure the cake sides and top so that you get an idea of how large the piece of fondant needs to be, that way you can stop the corners from tearing because of the weight of the excess fondant.
I hope all that make sense to you, I think I may have confused myself 
Just prick with a lace pin(fine) and rub it smooth/ not a problem, when covering cakes I get little bubbles occasionally and this is how it is rectified. Good luck I put my arms under the fondant when lifting and work quickly make sure it is not TOO thick or TOO thin. I would say 3/4 of a centimetre is perfect mster the art without guides I have never used them.....just make sure you have adequate work space.....eg table and cover it with a dusting of icing sugar........PS when rolling out do you turn over and roll then over and roll I just roll on one side lift roll again on the same side and carry on until you get the size also another tip I never ever make enough to cover the cake or board I ALWAYS use extra that way all the scraggly bits are cut off and allow for the best central part.
If you mean bubbles in your fondant as opposed to between the cake and the fondant, there's only one way to get those and that's from overworking the fondant, when you're kneading it up getting ready to roll it out, you should be relatively gentle with it, too much kneading, like you would a bread dough will result in pockets of air in your fondant and nobody wants that.
I'm not surprised that you don;t have airconditioning, not that many of us in the Southern Hemisphere do really. I only have a little thing on the wall of my kitchen so I don't melt into my cakes on hot summer days.
Let me know if I can help out any more.
If you knead the fondant like bread dough - you will get airbubbles in it..you have to kind of ..if you have the fondant in your hands or on a hard surface in front of you ( try & picture this !! 
)...roll the fondant into itself,turn it,roll.turn it,roll until its smooth,pliable etc & that should eliminate air bubbles !! can you tell i'm NOT a teacher ??!!
Wow! 3/4 of a centimetre is really thick! I couldn't work with fondant that thick but I guess in humid conditions it would work better than thin fondant because you could handle it better.
Kathryn, I guess you'll just have to work out what works best for you as we are a varied bunch 
Oh thank you thank you. I read somewhere you must knead the heck out of it so the more air pockets I was getting the more I was kneading!!!! 
I have the large tier to cover tomorrow so you guys may have just saved my life or the cakes (as it nearly ended up against the wall today!!!! 
Jules06 do you mean fold it over itself then roll... fold in over itself (like in half) then roll... can you tell I am a visual learner???
Since I also do pottery, I use the ramshead method of kneading my fondant. This method is used to eliminate air bubbles in clay, so I figured it would work for fondant. Plus I am so used to doing it with clay, I automatically do it with fondant. Here is a link with pictures on how to do it. It takes a bit of practice to learn. I hope this helps.
http://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/throw/preparation.html
If you go to the fabric store and get a large piece of plastic. It is easy to just take the fondant off of where you are and invert onto your cake then remove the plastic. When I was in Florida the humidity was always a killer and I never had a problem again. Hope that helps. By the way no one but us can see the small bubbles.
OMG I am soooooooooo grateful to everyone who answered my post last night. I have just covered my 25cm square (thats big for me and I HATE square cakes) and I followed everyones advice and I didnt even get ONE air bubble!!! Can you believe that!!?? I cant I am sooooo excited you just cant even begin to understand!!! (well actually this is probably the only place on the planet that would understand my excitement! ) I have been fighting with fondant all week (oh how I wish I had posted earlier before I covered the top two tiers!!!) and it was pouring down on my drive home from work so I really was expecting the worst. The clay method rocks!!
So thank you thank you thank you. From the bottom of my heart!! 
Hi fellow Kiwi. Great you sussed it out. I don't knead my fondant very much and just use my hand to squash around the outside of the packet of fondant and then push down with the palm of my hand to soften the middle then I try and push it all back together and then just squash and then roll into a fat sausage so outside is smooth and then away I go and roll it, move it around and roll again so it doesn't stick to table. I find I can manage it better if it is thicker rather than thinner. I always try not to smooth it too hard when it is on the cake as imperfections can show through. If you do have air bubbles prick with a pin as others say and to get rid of the pin prick place what you are rolling it out with on your finger and fill hole with it (I use potato flour which also leaves a slight sparkle on the cake) and the hole disappears. You can do this with cracks in the icing especially on the corners. Hope this is of some help. Cheers Briarview
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