Spring Strawberry Basket Cake

A friend of mine had been very kind to me lately and had done several favors so I wanted to make her a cake as a thank you. When I talked about what she and her husband like, she told me her husband loves chocolate cake. And that she loves buttercream, but doesn't care for fondant. Her husband says she loves strawberries and cream. Then she said she wants a spring-themed cake. So I tried to combine all those things together.

I baked a 7 inch vegan chocolate cake and filled it with vanilla American buttercream.
 I crumb coated the cake with vanilla buttercream.
 Then I frosted the cake.
 That used nearly all of the buttercream I had made, so I whipped up another batch, adding a bit of cocoa to make it light brown. I then put it in a piping bag with a medium sized star tip.
 I started piping on a basketweave pattern.
 I then went left and noticed the stars at the end of the row were very visible. So I changed my mind and decided to go right instead.
 At one point, though, when there wasn't much left in the piping bag, it got a bit too warm and didn't pipe well.
I refilled the piping bag, and scraped off the funny looking spot.
 I kept going around the cake to make the basket.
I then added washed and trimmed strawberries to the top to make it look like a basket of strawberries.
 I love how it turned out, even if it wasn't what I usually make.

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