Quilt in a Day or Missouri Quilt Company for free online. I learned to quilt watching Eleanor Burns on TV WAY BEFORE I lived close enough to a place that had quilt classes. We did not have much money, but I splurged and ordered Eleanor Burns Log Cabin book and learned a lot. Over the years, I have picked up a bunch of how-to books at used book stores and learned a lot about tone and color. I read a lot.
THEN we moved to a place where I could take lessons and I took some. I actually preferred watching the programs and then working things out -- in class there are always distractions and I never get much done. I have also used Quilter's Cache to learn a lot of techniques -- her explanations of block construction are usually right on and you can make wonderful quilts just combining different blocks into patterns or samplers. My fallback is graph paper and colored pencils (even though I have had most of the EQ's and now have 7 -- but it fails when I get creative).