Can anyone explain to me the rules of sex linking hybrids?

Hi all,
I have recently taken a keen interest in chicken breeding and am reading papers written by the monk Gregory Mendel which explains genetic traits passed down from parents. He first studied this with plants then went onto chickens and bees.

Here are some books to download if at all interested... (all free links from what I can tell)

http://www.getbookee.org/gregor-mendel/

Anyhow I wondered to save me alot of reading whether anyone has any rules of thumb surrounding this? Particulary I was interested in breeding "warrens or Hylines" which consist of a rhode island red cockerel and a light sussex hen. I happen to have a rhode island red cockerel, a light sussex cockerel and 3 rhode island red hens at my disposal but it got me thinking why does it not work the other way round? i.e. light sussex cockerel and rhodey hens.

So can anyone explain why this is? and is there any recognised hybrids I can make from my flock? I have 2 cuckoo maran hens, 1 light sussex cockerel, 1 silver sussex hen, 3 rhode island red hens, an RIR cockerel and the rest are 4 hybrid hens and 1 hybrid cockerel.

I have so far bred the light sussex with the maran and have 3, 6 week old chicks one that looks like a maran and the other 2 are more like light sussex's. The maran lookalike is a girl, and the sussex lookalikes are a 50/50 split, one male one female.

I have also bred the light sussex cockerel with a hybrid hen of mine (pictured on the left here) gold top, black bottom and a stripe of fur down her legs.

Interestingly the 3 I hatched from these 2 all have the stripey bit of fur down their legs but 2 are black with white faces/bellys and 1 is yellow (which will turn white no doubt). These are less than 2 weeks old so unsure of sex presently.

Im basically trying to figure out how the sex linking works which is no doubt the general jist of Gregory Mendels work. I shall post up pictures shortly of the 2 batches of chicks.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks 

thanks GrannieAnnie, I'll check them out. Also cheers for the tip about the hens taking the colouring from the father. I shall see if it runs true with my new lot of chicks.