Hopefully I can explain my question clearly....
When there is beautiful string work on the sides of a cake that looks suspended at the bottom (like it attaches to royal icing or something that curves out from the cake), how are those suspended pieces made? Are they made ahead of time and then attached to the cake and then the strings made? Or are the piped onto the cake with something holding them out from the cake until they dry? They sort of have me stumped. 
If anyone has any knowledge to share, I would appreciate it. TIA
Hi there Jadak:
I think you might be refering to "bridgework"? A pic would most definetly be helpful, but in any case this is what you are refering to, it all done in icing piped one row on top of the other allowing dry-time in between pipings. This is all done with very fine (usually No.0,00,1) piping tubes.
Maybe someone else can give better details
See "Australian Stringwork" in the below link:
http://tinyurl.com/yft6fpb
(This is a partial picture of Toba's cake below.)
Toba Garrett's two tier Australian stringwork Crystal wedding cake serves 150 for $5000.00:
http://www.tobagarrett.com/cakes.html
HTH
Let's see if I can explain this clearly. Start by inserting greased pins into the cake at the points of the scallops. Pipe the scallops over the pins using royal icing. Then pipe the strings from the cake down to the scallops. After it is dry, very carefully remove the pins. The royal is strong enough to suspend the scalloped string work. It is very tedious work but also beautiful. I hope that made sense.
Suggested and tried by others on another board. they use the red handle clay gun for string work. It works great and the fondant is mixed with a little tylose to help it dry faster but still stays soft. You squeeze the handle measure the length you need cut and place on cake.
I hope this helps.
Toba Garrett shows how to do this technique in her book, "The Well Decorated Cake"
Isn't this also called extension work? There was a lady on CakeCentral that did gorgous cakes using this. Loved them, but I don't have the patience to do it myself.
Gefion is too modest to toot her own horn - so I will. 
Check out her cakes, she does quite a bit in the Lambeth style and each one is a masterpiece.
Cakemommy also has some great Lambeth cakes in her gallery.
As does ShirleyW.
Sorry if I've forgotten to mention anyone else who works in this style. 
Just checked the galleries, and here's a link to all the Lambeth style cakes:
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&meta=search&type=full&search=lambeth&album=-&search_user=
HTH
If you decide to try it, do buy Toba's book and use her recipe for egg-white royal icing. I took her class and she says that meringue powder royal does not have enough strength to hold up to string and extension work. I can tell you that it is excruciatingly tedious work, that the cake underneath must be perfectly firm, that it takes a great deal of practice, that the tiny piping tips get clogged constantly, that a single crystal lump in the royal icing can make you want to kill yourself, that the little strings break easily, and that Toba's finished cakes are unlike anything you've ever seen (unless you spend a lot of time with Australian technique people). But everybody in our class ended up with a cake (on a cake dummy) that we never would have believed ourselves capable of doing at the beginning of the class. It was an amazing experience.
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