A long way up

Ah well, like Beverly, my idea didn't quite come together the way I wanted it to.  I was beating myself up about it and then I had a very serious talk to myself and said that as I am always spouting off about serendipity and mistakes being a good thing, I should be really happy.

Here is "Up in the milky way"  I think my problem with it is that it is so monochromatic - which as you know is not me, however there are lots of sparkles, more than are shown in the photo. I used  the technique of quilting densely first, then painting.  This gave me the background.  The milky way was originally stencilled in with a silver shiva stick, but I really did not like it as the contrast was too stark, so I scribbled all over it with a variegated blue and white thread  (scribbling being my mode of quilting in the background, too)
Finally, (I thought it was final)  I added iron on rhinestones for the stars.  I was actually very accurate about where I put the stars, using star maps and my own observations late at night to place the major stars, because this is actually what I see most nights when I look up.  The sky is full of stars because there are few lights out here in the bush at night to interfere with the view of the sky.
Anyway, I had bound it and was "finished" and decided that the contrast was still to high, so I began adding hand stitching, seed stitches and cross stitches. 
One thing I am learning about myself is that I actually like to hand stitch and doing the fiddly bits.  Once, I was a bit of a purist and did everything by machine, but hand and machine work both have different textures and work together well.
The contrast is still too high between the sky and the Milky way, but like Beverly, I might still add a bit more stitching, because as I was adding the stitches last night, I was liking the quilt more and more.