The finished product

My goal: to dye a yarn a vibrant rainbow of colors.

After playing with the Wilton dyes and Kool-Aid, I had an idea of how I was going to get the colors I wanted.  I wanted long runs of the color, so I put the yarn up on the yarn swift, I estimated the length of each color that wanted, and figured that would leave me with about 3 repeats of every color.  I then took the skein winder, counted out yards, and made little mini hanks.  

In the kitchen, I prepped 6 gallon sized zip lock bags.  I dumped in the Kool-Aid packets, and poured in some water.  Then, I added the Wilton dye.  I didn't take note of how much I added to each, and I really wish I had.  I mixed up the dye baths to get the gel to blend with the water, and then I laid out my mini hanks.

I arranged them in a circle, with 6 different groups.  I took each group, and placed it in a bag.  I put them in the microwave and did 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off.

As there was yarn between the baggies (because, I wanted one big skein with multiple colors), I had to alternate and dip the "middles" into the different colors to get a seamless flow of color.  So, if I had the yarn pulled closer to yellow for one go around, the next time I started the cooking cycle, I'd move it so it was more in the green.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  It was a lot of effort to prepare (and I did this a few times..), but I love the results.