sorry i've been offline for a few days. crazy busy at work.
the three builds i posted use a combination of cherry, maple, and walnut. I'm not sure which you mean by the stripey wood.
to build the brick pattern, i first glued up three strips of cherry (the first two 1" thick, the third 1/2" thick) with two strips of maple (each 1/8" thick) in between (so 1" cherry, 1/8" maple, 1" cherry, 1/8" maple, 1/2" cherry). when that dried, i cut it into 5/8" slices along its width for a total of 6 slices, and then glued it back together, but flipping every other slice 180 degrees and gluing new 1/8" strips of maple in between each slice. it's easier to do than to explain, i suspect. the only hard part, which isn't necessary, but gives a cool effect of the "mortar" being inset, is to cut all of your 1/8" maple slices a little narrower than the cherry, so when you stand things up to glue, the cherry pieces sit proud of the maple pieces. just make sure you clean all the glue out of grooves made by the shorter maple pieces when the glue is wet cause you can't clean it out of the grooves (easily) after it's dried.
Let me know if that description is confusing. thanks for taking such an interest!