Couple things....
Boston...to answer your original question, I made a scrappy looking lap quilt once. It was your sister that helped me make sure I didn't have exactly the same fabric next to eachother. It took us all morning. We just pulled stuff out of the bag, then arranged it a little. Here is one of the strips she helped me with:
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In regards to tube quilting, I think Bargello's are made that way. I made my Stairway to Heaven like that. You pick what width you want. In the picture shown, she picked 2 1/2" strips. I picked 5 1/2" strips. You sew each strip in order you want. The picture posted went from darker to lighter. Mine was Patriotic for my Army son, so it had solid red, solid white, solid blue and overlapping flag print. I kept stitching until I had 16 strips with the same repeat over and over again. I knew I was going to have 16 rows. When I had all 16 strips sewn together, I stitched strip 1 to strip 16 creating a tube. You then cross cut on width you want. The picture posted was cross cut at 2 1/2". I cross cut mine at 5 1/2". Then I had 16 rings. Then, you pick out one seam for each ring. You have to plan where you pick the seam out so you can make your gradation go over one square. When the quilt was done, it looked like this:
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