Here is a patriotic lapghan blanket I just finished up for the Warmth for Warriors. Each year we have a blanket drive where people crochet, knit or sew blankets and lapghans for the troops and veterans. This is my patriotic blanket in honor of the 4th of July.

I took the original light & lacy baby blanket pattern and changed colors every 5 rows. I started with Red Heart yarn in red, then white and finally with blue. I crocheted 4 sets of 5 rows in each color ending with one last set of 5 rows in red yarn to finish off the blanket before adding the border. I then used the blue yarn to work the border.

Here is a closeup of the beginning of the pattern to show the detail of the stitch pattern.

A few changes and modifications I did make were to have 4 double crochet (DC) stitches at the beginning and end of each row. I am not sure why row 2 of the pattern has 5 DCs including the Ch-3 and then other rows have Ch-3 and 3 DCs making a total of 4 DCs. Also row 3 ends with just 3 DCs?

I reached out to Shelly who wrote the pattern at her blog and also through Ravelry but I did not receive a response when I asked about this discrepancy or if I had a misunderstanding of the pattern directions. So I just changed the pattern to make it so all rows start and end with 4 DCs including the Ch-3 at the start of each row. Because of the extra stitch at the beginning of the first row 2, you would want to just chain 99 to start the pattern. This will allow you to have 4 DCs on either end of the rows which keep the pattern uniform in my opinion.

Here is a closeup picture of the finished border. As you may see, the chain 3 spaces are stagger opposite each other from rows 1 and 3. I did work a row of single crochet stitches around evenly before I began border row 1 as the pattern was written. Therefore I have 5 rows of blue for my finished border.

Finished size of my lapghan blanket is 32 inches wide by 42 inches long. I love the stitch pattern and am very happy with the overall outcome of the blanket. I definitely want to crochet another blanket using this attractive pattern.