Dying to Dye

So I was asked numerous times how exactly I dyed the yarn with kool-aid, so here's a step by step mostly with pictures.  (I forgot to take a few)

Yarn: Knitpicks Bare Merino/Silk lace weight 
Dye: Kool-aid Brand unsweetened drink mix.  2 packets of Lemonade (yellow), Orange (orange), Solar Strawberry Starfruit (pink). 1 packet of Grape (purple). 1/2 packet of Lemon-Lime (green) and 2 1/2 packets of Black Cherry (red).

Step 1 - Presoak:  I soaked the yarn for about an hour in cold water with a small squirt of Ivory dishsoap.

Step 2 - Lemonade Flavor: I used 2 packets of lemonade in cold water, then added the yarn and filled the bowl so that the yarn was covered.  Nuked in the microwave for 2 minutes, let rest for 5 and giving it a VERY gentle stir, repeated this until the water was clear.  Removed the yarn from the micro, and let it cool to room temp and prepared the mix for step 3.  I wanted the water to be room temp to try to prevent any felting.
As you can see the yellow didn't take evenly, but I wasn't overly concerned since I would be doing a lot of over dyeing.

Step 3 - Orange Flavor: Repeated step 2 except water was room temp instead of cold.  This time I didn't submerge all the yarn I kept out about 7 inches.  I let this part dangle into another bowl to catch drippings. My original plan was to fold the skein in half and submerge the ends, but I got all excited and forgot, so it was one end hanging out.   Still trying to not panic over the uneven dyeing.  This time I decided to pour the yarn into a shallow cake pan to try to speed up a bit the cool down time. 

Step 4 - Pink Flavor: Repeat of Step 3, not submerging another 4 or so inches of the yarn.  This step I forgot to get a picture of, but you will be able to see some of the pink in the next photos.    It looks a lot like clown barf still.

Step 5 - Red Flavor: Repeat of Step 4, took out another 4 inches or so. 

Step 6 - Purple Flavor: I decided since there was such a small amount of yarn left  that I would cut back to 1 packet.  Leaving about 4" in the dyebath.   I also forgot to take a picture of this step.  At this time everything is still bright and I wanted to tone it down a bit. 

Step 7 - Green Flavor:  I went with a 1/2 a packet for the whole skein.   I didn't want to actually add green just something to tone down the colors.  When it was finished I wasn't happy with it, but decided to see what it looked like when it was dry.

And once it was dry:

I didn't like it, I wanted them to blend better, and didn't care much for the extreme light colors.  I talked to a couple people and decided to do another 1/2 packet of grape.  But at the last minute I got paranoid because I didn't want the light parts to turn out purple so went with a 1/2 packet of black cherry. 
Once it cooled down I rinsed it really well, then put it into a bowl of water with a squirt of hair conditioner then rinsed complete.  Making sure the water runs clear.

The end result can be seen in the previous post.   I'm pretty pleased with myself.