Striped Round Ripple Baby Blanket or another way to change colors

I'm expecting to need 4 more baby blankets soon for 2 nephews, a daughter and a son. I have 2 finished and 2 started. More W I P!
For one of these, I'm using baby sport weight yarn in baby ombre (variegated baby colors) and pale blue. Each stripe is 3 rows wide.
I'm not cutting the yarn to change colors and it does seem to go faster, since I no longer have to cut yarn, tie on a different color, or work in ends.
At the end of a round, I join with a slip stitch, sl st in next stitch, work 3 ch st to count as first dc of next round. As I work each of these ch st, I work it around the unused yarn color. This raises the yarn of both colors to the next round. Then, I continue working in pattern using only the yarn color I want for the next round.
This works best for narrow stripes of only 2 different colors.