Ok, I finished my purse and it came out really nice. Initially I used the lok eye needle and I must have gotten two duds. The first one snapped when I opened it to insert the lace, and with the second one, the prongs snapped off when I lightly tapped it with a mallet to seat the prongs into the lace.
At that point I got frustrated and had to go eat a bowl of icecream. That always seems to help when I'm frustrated.
I tried the jumbo permalock needle and I couldn't get the lace to stay in, I think the they make the new ones with the threads too shallow. I used one that an old timer gave me and I could really tell a great difference. I guess the old saying holds true-- they really don't make em like they used to. Plus, I really didn't like trying to use a round needle with flat lace. It seems you could twist the lace too easily.
In conclusion, I ended up ordering more lok eye needles and that did the trick. I don't know if the ones I had been using were old and brittle or what. But the new one worked for me.
I heard some people make their own lacing needles out of old soda cans, anyone tried that??
Thanks again for all your help!!