I used water soluable aniline dye from StewMac. I mixed up some blue, purple, and black. All the blending was done on the wood. This is what I did for the stain:
0. Raise the grain with a wet rag and sand with 400 grit 3 times.
1. Apply black around the edges and purple for the rest, let it soak in.
2. Lightly sand (400 grit) so only the deep soaked stain remains and the white appears on top of the curl or quilt grain.
3. Apply blue all over, twice.
4. Let it dry and sanded again to lighten up the top.
5. Rub blue into the center and black around the edges and while it is still wet rub purple in between to blend the blue and black.
5. Rub more blue in the center and black near the edges.
6. Sand again.
7. Applied the final staining of black at the edges, touch of purple in the middle and lots of blue in the center.
My approach to staining is much like watercolor painting. It is a very forgivable medium. If you put on too much and make things too dark either let it dry and sand it back or wipe a wet rag over the dark area to remove dye. Also you can force lighter color dye over darker dye by saturating the area and rubbing it in. You can also fix a line of dye when you go over a dry area by rubbing it out with more dye.
I would suggest starting with a sanded piece of wood and practicing. Play around with it and you will get the hang of it. Start out with diluted dyes so you can see how they work. Then just keep adding more to build up the color. As you can see I used about 10 coats of stain altogether to get the color I wanted. It will come to you if you work with it.
I don't have a spray system either. All my coloring is with dye and I brush on nitrocellulose lacquer for the clear coats. It works pretty well even if it does take a little longer. The result is the same.