Yumm ... Lace

I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into, but I'm jumping into the lace lake with both feet. I received the book for Christmas and have since purchased enough lace for about five projects. I'm going to start off slow and tackle the Large Rectangle with Center Diamond Pattern. It's rated easy and all the wrong-side rows are plain purls, so I think I will do fine.

The yarn I'm using is (I think) Japanese or Chinese and I believe is called Lacey Lamb in a nice honeydew color.
I had problems today casting on. I made several attempts at the Invisible Cast On and wasn't too happy with my results. I'm sure it was user error. So, I resorted to the Chain Cast-On, which I've used before with toe-up socks.

If anyone has any feedback about favored cast-ons I would love to hear about them, as I'm new to this lace stuff.

Only a couple rows into the pattern, so no picture yet.