Hive 2 January Tutorial - Variation on courthouse steps

Happy January!  We're going to make a variation on courthouse steps this month!  I'm slowly making a quilt of each color, and this year the color is green.  This quilt will be gifted to a friend whose baby is coming in March, but they decided not to find out the gender.

FABRICS
You'll need a white center and then an assortment of greens. 
*For the white, please use a white-on-white or solid white.
*The greens should read as green, see the examples below.
*Batiks and solids are welcome, novelty prints are not. (I realized last year that everyone has a different definition of what novelty means to them.  To me, a novelty print is a print with something ("a noun") on it that is the focal point.  A few nouns are exceptions because they're so common: leaves, flowers, stars, and hearts.  Geometric shapes are not novelty prints: polka dots, squiggly lines, etc.  If the noun is arranged in a pattern or are a similar color to the background such that the noun is not really the focal point, that is fine too.) 

 

CUTTING
The only exact instruction I have for cutting is to cut the white fabric to a 6" square.  (It will be 5.5" after the other strips are added to it.)  The greens will need some strips of between 2" and 3.5".  The darker strips will need to be a little longer as they will be going on the outer part of the block.

SEWING
This is put together like a traditional courthouse steps block, although all the strips in a square will be the same color.  

Start with your lightest green and add it to two sides of the white square.  The exact strip width doesn't matter, but should be between 2" and 3.5" and should be the same for both pieces.  Press the seams toward the outside green piece. 

Add the other two sides of the lightest green.  They should also be the same width as the previous strips. Press toward the outside.  I often check after each border and make sure everything is still square.

Continue adding boxes in the same manner until you've reached 16.5".  The boxes should go from your lightest green to your darkest green.  If you need to sew two strips (of the same fabric) together to make a strip long enough, that is fine. If your last box width needs to be smaller than 2" or a little bigger than 3.5" that's fine; I often have a hard time with the dimensions of the last strip because the math never seems to work out easily.

I'm planning on cutting these in quarters, although I haven't decided the final arrangement yet.

Please let me know if you have any questions!