I have made a variation on this pattern. I do not put the sc, ch-3, 3-dc in the chain space. I put them in the next stitch. It gives a really cool tesselated pattern. The shells pop forward on one row, then the next row pops to the other side of the blanket.

You can hopefully see the detail somewhat in the photos. The surface is textured, not completely flat like the original design.

You can work up this blanket in any yarn you like; I like Bernat Baby Coordinates best because of how its texture works up. Caron Simply Soft makes a wonderfully soft blanket too.