Yarn, glorious yarn

I got this yarn on sale at Hobby Lobby and I loved it - it's YarnBee Infatuation. I bought 2 skeins of each of the 5 colors. With the rust colored set I wanted to make myself something - and maybe a shawl for the girls out of the pinks (I bought this yarn before I knew very much about how much yarn projects take and I probably didn't buy enough to make something for myself). But when I started to try to "yarn this up" it was a catastrophe. I do NOT knit well with ladder-type yarns. What's the secret????