Just spent the last hour going through the tute from Barb in Virtual section about making a bargello. I also went online and found other explanations. Some make a tube from the strips and cut them apart at the correct block, and hers stacked the fabrics in different ways . Does that all make sense? Anyway, is there anyone that has done the tube method and does it work the same way?

I've used the tube method to do Trip Around the World. You can see a tutorial of that at Quiltville.com--Bonnie Hunter's site.
I haven't moved on to the more complex bargello yet.

I make a tube, and cut or unsew depending on the pattern.

Just curious - did you cut off at the seam allowance or take out the stitches? I saw Elenor Burns cut hers at seams.

I unsew my Trip Around the World quilts.

When I did a bargello I took out the stitches, did not cut the blocks.

Cheryl, I have made one bargello where I had to use the tube method, but I'm not fond of it.
The bargellos I showed in the tutorial have a certain number of fabrics showing at the top of the quilt...I'll say seven. A color goes down seven steps and them back up to the top. And that repeats across the width of the quilt. So if you are going to need strata with only seven different fabrics on the top, I feel that is better to sew those and when you cut then into the widths you need, it saves all that snipping out and resewing. I really have a hard time snipping out a seam at the currect place. Even if I open the tube in the currect place I've been known to sew that strip up side down.

I make all my trip are the world quilt using the same method as I do the bargello.

It can also depend on the pattern or lack of pattern that you are making your bargello with. If I were to do Barb's tutorial, I would do it her way because it is all planned out. It is a beautiful quilt and i may do it someday.

On the other hand, sometimes I want to just have fun with a Bargello. I don't know what the pattern will be and it kind of takes on a life of its' own. Not knowing what I will need until I do it, it would not work for me personally to sew that many different strata(as well as having all of those scraps left over).

Thanks for all the input. I guess I just need to get started on one and see it all in action. I still am having a little trouble understanding it all, but I'm going to give it a go!

You will enjoy it! Have fun!

I had serious problem grasping the whole "Bargello method" . Maybe it was the idea of "un-sewing" that just had me mentally put off from the start. But.... once I actually did one ... I was in love with the method/process. You can get awesome results with not nearly the efforts ... if you had to put the pieces together in a traditional manner. Do take the time to work thru it .. it will be worth it.!
There are a few varitations on the same results, but being called bargello. I learned at the start of the popularity that it was making the strip sets , then sewing the last strip to the first strip , making a "tube" and working with the order that the seam was taken apart to form a new strip "set" or lenght. that created the bargello effect. I have seen several books and video's that are calling them selves Bargello that are in from what I was taught ... just different methods of strip piecing.

I undone the stitches in mine! :-)

[i]If Trip Around the World is a form of bargello, I don't think I will ever do one. I got the Eleanor Burns Trip Around the World book, cut everything, stripped everything and when it came time to put it together, it made no sense to me at all. I redid the whole thing, made it a regular quilt and gave the remaining strips away. I couldn't stand to look at it again. It is now a Quilt of Valor delivered Saturday to a soldier in Texas who is home on leave. I doubt he will ever realize all the angst I had over it and it is making someone happy without even being a Trip Around the World. NEVER AGAIN!!!

I haven't done a bargello, but when I did the tube method I unstitched the row I needed to undo the tube. But, I needed the blocks the full size that I had originally sewn them together in.

Cutting seems like a waste, but if you are going to square up the outside edges anyway(on one pattern I saw, the seams were NOT lined up horizontally, they were all off by some variable amount for effect, and so the final had to be squared up all the way around, then one way or another you are snipping some bits of fabric away. Then, it makes sense to just go ahead and cut because the cut will happen later at that junction point anyway.