I am curious about how near/far you quilters are to quilt shops. I believe I live in 'quiltshop heaven'! There are 7 quilt shops within 30 miles of where I live, as well as two Joann's! Each has its own 'personality' and what a range of choices, classes, ideas, etc.! It helps to have some willpower but what an advantage this is.

I think I have at least tied with you...four LQS plus two Joanns and two Walmarts with fabric within 10 miles, another three LQS a Joanns and a Walmart within 40 miles, and still another 5 LQS, a Joann's and a Walmart within a days drive (go and return in a day...and in that day you can take in every one of those if you really push it and if the owners of a couple of them haven't decided to go fishing instead! As you say, each one has it's own personality and it's always a treat to go. A couple of them are really geared to tourists and it's fun to meet the shoppers when I stop by there.

There's over a dozen within an hour's radius of me, six or 7 within 20 minutes to a half hour. I feel pretty fortunate. I also have one that's about 25 minutes away that has an attached retreat center. Check it out.

http://www.threadsoftimefab.com

It's superb! In fact, I'm going there this Friday for a week long retreat.

The closest to me are about 3 hours round trip in opposite directions. That makes it hard to go from one to the other. I visit the shops about once a month.

Living in Springfield, we are the major hub of Southwest Missouri. We are 35 minutes from Branson where Quilts & Quilts is located. We have several quilt shops,5 sewing machine shops,Hancock's, 2 Hobby Lobby's, 3 Walmart's that sell fabric,several fabric shops and this is all within the city limits. Then you can spread out to the north, south, east and west and add more to the numbers. It is nice to have variety and comparison shopping available. I know how lucky I am, 5 quilt/fabric shops are within 1 mile of my home.

You guys are lucky. The closest one is 25 miles away, but the service is not very good and the one that I love is 54 miles away. Plus they took all the fabric out of the Walmart where I live and they closed the JoAnn's that was 50 miles away

I have a great shop about 15 miles, Jo Anns is 2 hours.

2 quilt shops within 5 miles several within 15 miles

Mine is about 55 miles (one way) from where I live. The Joann's is about 2 hrs away. I really like my LQS and 95% of my business goes there - They really treat me well and I love their fabrics.

Western Subarbs of Chicago are very good to me :-)