How To Pipe Straight Verticle Lines
Decorating By ladyonzlake Updated 20 Jun 2006 , 8:24pm by ladyonzlake
Is there a trick to piping straight verticle lines on a round cake? I'm doing a cake with multiple color and sizes of stripes on the cake and I want to make sure they stay straight.
Mostly confidence and practice are the necessary tools. 
You could indent lines in the side to give you a guide. Don't concentrate to much on the guide though. Pausing will make it jittery looking. Just look at your destination Point and go there without hesitation (making sure you stay close enough to the cake).
Good luck!
You might try something I used to do when I first learned basketweave and that was to mark vertical lines with a ruler and a toothpick. After a little practice you won't need it. Hope this helps!
I've been working on this too. I read somewhere that corn syrup added to bc will make it stretchier (is that a word?LOL!). This person was referring to using it for dropstrings but I'm wondering if the same principle would apply for vertical lines. Don't know if it will work, just a thought.
I also tilt my cake and pipe from the bottom up. To tilt, I put down some shelf liner on my workspace, invert a soup plate (or some kind of shallow bowl) on top of that, another piece of shelf liner on the soup plate & then the cakeboard rests along the back side of the inverted bowl. The cake is tilted away from me.
Some good tips I learned in school, get one of those cheap wrist braces at the drug store. I think some people use the arm slings as well. This helps support the hand, less shaky.
Also, you can easily correct mistakes/crooked lines by either, using a toothpick and picking up the piping, discarding and starting over OR by taking a paint brush dipped in water to straighten out the lines. You just run the brush along side the line and it straightens them out. You can also do this with letters, fixing bumps and making them straighter as well.
Oh, and practice, practice, practice...lol.
Some good tips I learned in school, get one of those cheap wrist braces at the drug store. I think some people use the arm slings as well. This helps support the hand, less shaky.
I've had this Ace neoprene wristband for years that I love. It's just a neoprene strap with velcro so you can adjust it for less or more support. I love that thing.
Everytime you pipe take a deep breath, and don't breathe again until you have finished the line!!! 
Thanks everyone. I had to giggle at jennifier293's tip.
WOW, KimAz I like your idea the best so far. I'll try that. Thanks!
I'm doing them on the sides of the cake. I'm actually going to frost in white and then make a template with swags on it and place on the top of the side of the cake and frost the bottom in yellow. Where the yellow is, I'm going to make the lines, different sizes and colors.
Jacqui
The swags will be in the middle so that the top is white and under the swags it will be yellow with the lines.
Hey, just saw that you're a fellow Washingtonian! How cool!
The cakes sounds so lovely! I love yellow cakes. I haven't been brave enough to try the two tone. I wouldn't know how to do it! If I do string work of any kind on the side of a cake, I make sure I am below the level of the cake. You have to be careful when you put a cake on a tilting turntable. Depending on how heavy the cake is, the cake will slide.. It's best to have the cake "glued" with icing to a cake board and then place it on a piece of non-skid material on the tilting turntable. You're cake shouldn't budge. Now if you leave it there for a long time well then yeah, it will eventually start to shift. I avoid the tilting turntable. I have one but hate it. It's the Wilton one! It is so not worth $59.00!!!!!! I just sit at my island in my kitchen on a stool that keeps me lower than my cake.
When I do my string work wether swags or lines I, with steady pressure bring the line out towards me and down and in to my stopping point. Any excess icing can be brushed off gently with a damp paint brush!
Good luck and I can not wait to see this beauty!!!
Amy
Amy, you have some beautiful cakes. I love the one with the string work. I have not tried that yet! I was wondering if there's a place that you get your hard to find cake supplies here locally or do you do what I do I purchase on the internet?
I order my supplies from "Do it With Icing" down in San Diego! My sister (mommykicksbutt) lives down there and I make a trip down once or twice a year and I load up. If I need something I just call my sister and she'll get it and send it to me. They do have a website but it hasn't been updated in a while with their supplies. The lady's son runs it and is apparently really busy with his full time job. I can call Linda any time and order something and she'll ship it. If she doesn't have it in stock she'll order it for me. She's really great about that. She also has the best clear vanilla! Oh man is it GOOD! She has it made in Mexico and it is just delicious!
Thank you for the compliment on my stringwork. My husband encouraged me to try it and I loved it! I couldn't believe I tried it for the first time for a cake show!!!!! You should try it! It is so much fun and what an ego boost when it turns out!!!!!
Amy
Oh, that's a good idea too...I think I have one of those!
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