4 days before Pinwheel Cake

Time to start making pinwheels.  I need them to be nice and solid to put on the edible sticks before the day I put the cake together.  I need to have them all done at least 2 day prior to the finished product.  My first pinwheel is below.  I used a combination of fondant and gumpaste for all of the pinwheels.  It kind of depended on what color I was using.  I purchased pre-colored red - I hate how much food coloring I have to use to make a true red.  I have determined that I hate the texture of red fondant, purchased or made.  It always dries out quick and cracks...I believe it is because it is so saturated with color.

So how did I do it?  I'll show you with my second.  First I cut out the pieces to go on the pinwheel for the decoration.  For this particular pinwheel, it was a lot of 1/4" squares in dark and light yellow.

Then I rolled out a larger piece and cut it to be a perfect square (each pinwheel was a different size).

Then I began adding my details as quickly as possible to eliminate as much dry time as possible.  This is where my dislike for red fondant was intensified.  Notice the error here?  I only meant to add detail to the parts that would show for this particular pinwheel as the detail was so involved.  However, I made a mistake and added detail to the wrong area on one of the sections - so more work than I needed to do - and more dry time. 

I cut diagonals in from each corner.  I then used edible glue to glue one corner to the center for each section. I placed a piece of rolled up paper towel under each loop so that it would not collapse on itself.

I made a gumpaste button by using a circle cookie cutter and the middle holes were made using a small round piping tip.  Notice some of the red cracking.  I didn't think this one would make it, which was very frustrating as I spent a LOT of time on it.