Well, at the last minute I decided to make my MIL's birthday cake a basket cake. It has many issues but I think it is cute for my first one. Thanks to those who took the time to help with the colors, ganache etc...
Deanna, that is one of the cutest cakes I have ever seen! I love it. Your basketweave is perfect too, when you mentioned basketweave in another post I was picturing the buttercream look and this is so much cooler! Your MIL is going to think it's the best birthday cake ever 
Thanks gals! I allmost typed basket case! lol. Anyway, thanks so much for the comments. She is going to kill me when she sees the 62 but that is what she gets for sending me DEAD BLACK roses on my 40th birthday. hehehe 
. She will forgive me when she sees the 1/2" thick layer of ganache in the center. The woman has a chocolate stash that is locked up like fort knox.
To do the basket weave I simply rolled out a long strip of fondant that was long enough to go around the cake. Then I cut 4 1" strips out of it. Next I cut the veticle strips leaving enough extra length to give me some working room. I wove the pieces together using just a smll dot of water were the pieces overlaped each other. I gave it a small amount of timed to stick then folded the ends in toward the center, picked it up and quickly be carefully layed it up against the cake and wrapped it around. I cut it where it met in the back and added a strip on top of the ends to finish it off. I then tucked the bottom in with a spatula and cut the tops level with scissors. I then added the rope to finish the top off. To ensure it did not slide off the cake I wrapped it with plastic wrap a couple of times around and let it set up. In the future I think I would roll it much thinner because cutting the cake was a bit of a mess. Also, I used Fonderific fondant which really does not dry out so it was able to lay out on the counter and get stuck to itself without it becoming brittle. Thanks for all of the comments!
Doug,
You allways make me smile. I did not use an impression mat. I just got the sheet of fondant and used the zigzag wheel that fits on my wilton roilling cutter (same one that holds the stitch wheel) and rolled it up and down the fondant that I wanted to look knited. Then on the numbers i just made some fondant snakes and then used my finger to flatten them and shapped them into the numbers then used a sharpened skewer and made
/\\ marks on it. As for her forgiving me, I actually got her age wrong. She gave me the year so it was her fault but she was actually only 61! heheheheh. Anyway, she made me take the numbers off before anyone saw it (we had lunch at a restaurant here in town). I did remind her of the dead roses before I showed her the cake so I dont know what she was expecting but she knew it was gonna be good.
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