Tony's present

It's Tony's birthday next week and he already had all of his presents, but I hate not having anything to give on the day. So I decided to make him a present, mind you.....I've never made him anything before.......so I might get the dreaded "yeah-nice-look".
And I'm not a quilter.....so real quilters look away now.....I'm not hindered by any knowledge about the art of quilting, so I've probably broken every rule in the quilters handbook.

Anyway I decided to make a fabric action photo of his new found love, cycling. He goes on these incredibly long cycle trips and always takes pictures along the way. But he's always complaining that he doesn't have any action shots of him on the bike. So I could do two things.......1. I could go on these long bike rides with him and take pictures.....or 2. I could retreat to my hobbyroom and make one myself...

Can you blame me for choosing the second option?

Anyway I decided upon a tour de France style picture, where he's climbing the mountains.

All the decorative stitches on my machine came to good use, little leaves in the greenery and about a gazillion french knots on the mountain. The snow on the mountain isn't quilted through but only stitched on the top layer so it puffs up a little.
I replaced the sunset with an English flag. This is for a man who's got "Made in England" tattooed on his shoulder!
The face I printed on fabric, but as my printer isn't really suitable for printing fabric this gave me only a faint outline. So I coloured the face in with pencils (like I've done with Frida below).
Then I bordered the whole thing and stuffed the border, so it would look like a picture frame and I decorated the frame with some old lace which I coloured with a gold Shiva-paintstick,
So now I can only keep my fingers crossed and hope he likes it!