Oh my goodness, I’m sorry to have left your comment for so long! The red, white and blue keychain is a four-strand spiral like the pictured barber pole, but 2 strands are in white (the yellow in the pictures would be replaced with white).

To leave the end open, do the “clean-up and pole base” section but stop before the decrease round. If you’re working snug to make a cozy, you might replace “*2sc in next sc, sc in next sl st* three times” by “*3sc in next sc, sc in next sl st* three times” to give the end more stretch.

For the loop, after the joining slip stitch of the clean-up round, leave your yarn attached and chain until it’s as long as you like, joining on the opposite side (or right next to where you started, depending on what you’d like).

My red, white and blue keychain was made with embroidery floss and a size 1 steel hook (2.75mm), and the other keychain was fine yarn (weight class 2) and a D hook (3.25mm). They had one of each spiral block: A, B, C. The red, white and blue one used the stretchier clean-up round and had a chain-14 for the loop. The other keychain used the clean-up as written and had a chain-8 for the loop.

Advice would be… embroidery floss is more difficult to work with because it has no stretch, so if you can get fine yarn in the appropriate colors that would probably be more fun. Good lighting helps a lot. Make sure you get your loops all the way up to the full diameter part of the hook, especially on a steel hook, and turn the mouth of the hook downward when you pull it out (or toward the previous chain, if you’re chaining).