From what you ladies all describe about quilt stores in America i am drooling..you dont know how lucky you are to have so much choice! I live in Perth, Western Australia and there are only a couple of stores close enough to me that sell sewing machines with a little bit of material! But i would much rather shop there and pay higher prices (and make less quilts) than shop at spotlight which is a huge store with lots of material (quite often discounted) and only very few gadgets. My main gripe is the staff there arent helpful and havent had enough training to be able to give good advice and some of their fabrics are very poor quality. So ladies what i am trying to say is shop at your local quilt stores otherwise they will go out of business and then the big boys take over and there goes all the fun of being able to check out new gadgets and fondle and drool over all the materials as it is not the same when you shop online!!
I look forward to our once a year quilt show as then i can ooh and aah over all the beautiful fabrics and gadgets and i save money all year so i can have a big spend on material and gadgets that i cant usually get.
One day i hope to visit at least some of your beautiful quilt stores...
:P