KitKat

Hi guys, I'm new here to the forum and new to affinity designer. So far I'm loving the software, however I seemed to have ran into a bit of a problem, It's kind of hard to explain but, whenever I draw something with the pen tool on a new layer it always starts out with no fill, I click on the “use fill” check box which seems to solve the problem temporarily, but then when I draw another shape in the same layer the settings goes back to no fill & no stroke on the new shape and I have to click 'use fill' again. Also when I go to edit a shape that I previously made, the fill and stroke disappear and the settings just automatically reset to no fill & no stroke, and I have to go back and choose the colour I had previously... is there anyway to fix this? And is there any way I can use the fill option by default without having to click it every time I make a new shape?