We must be really fortunate here in East Tennessee. The store we considered our "home" shop closed last year, but we have a nice shop about 8 miles away in Knoxville. The shop where we bought her machine is about 15 miles away and has a great selection of fabric (plus as a machine buyer we get 10% off fabric any time). Two other large shops are within 20 or so miles of us. A little further away, we can hit 4 shops in Sevierville and Gatlinburg within a 35 minute drive. We can make a day of it and go to Crossville (Julia at Little Blessings is great and gives really good classes) or extreme Northeast TN and find 3 or 4 shops up there (Dandridge, Jonesboro, Cosby).
Now that I think of it we must be spoiled with all these LQS. Some of our Wal-Mart stores still carry fabric but we never see anything useful. Jo-Ann's is about 15 miles away, but we've never found anything there either. Also 2 Hobby Lobby within 20 miles. Our Hancock's closed several years ago.
The AQS show will be in Knoxville next week and also in 2010 and 2011. As "new" quilters, we're looking forward to attending the show and seeing the displays and quilts.