Deb, Liz the Art Ed, Kirstie and I were all at S&C 2009 at Olympia yesterday, manning the knitting clinic. It was great fun, and we met lots of readers – all lovely! The tricky questions went to Kirstie, but I was able to help a few people with sock knitting. It feels great to be able to help.

If you're planning to go over the next couple of days, Elizabeth will be there tomorrow along with knitwear designer Amanda Jones, and Jen from The Knitter will be there on Sunday with Rhian and Elle, who both come to our Tuesday lunchtime stitching group. Do drop by and say 'Hello' to them, and take your knitting problems if you have any.

If you like sock knitting and puzzles and haven't heard of the Unicorn Quest, there's still time to sign up for it. It's best described as 'a sock club with a twist'. It's being run by Fyberspates and the Natural Dye Studio, and over nine months you need to buy 4 skeins of yarn from one firm and 5 from the other. Each month there's a riddle on the ball band, and if you solve all nine riddles and find the name of the unicorn you can enter a prize draw to win all sorts of yarn-related goodness.

I've already signed up, and have made my first purchase. (My husband thinks I have enough yarn already, so when I told him I'd planned to buy a skein of sock yarn every month for nine months he came close to hysterical laughter.) The yarn is being shipped out to Unicorn questers on 1 April – but a skein has been sent to Simply Knitting*. We're the first UK mag to receive any. I'll be putting it in Ideas, but it's great to get a scoop, so I thought I'd share it with you. The magazine skein doesn't have the riddle, so I don't have an unfair advantage. I have to wait until my personal skein arrives like all the other questers.

The yarn's composition is a secret, as it's been spun especially for the Natural Dye Studio and Fyberspates. Jen (The Knitter's tech ed) and I are the only ones in the Simply Knitting/ The Knitter office today, but we've given it a good rub and think there must be alpaca in there, and possibly silk as it has a slight sheen. It really is incredibly soft; rub-it-on-your-cheek soft. It has a fuzziness that reminds me of Du Store Alpakka's Babysilk, and I suspect it will drape in a similar way. I shall have to ask friends with babies to give it a rub and see if they think it's nipper-friendly, because when my skein arrives I may try knitting a baby garment with it if it is. I'm glad I'm buying my own; I suspect office wars could start over this one!

Knitting seems to fly off the needles at the Brainy Lady blog, turning this corner of the internet into a tempting parade of knits – your 'must knit' queue will definitely grow!

Alison, the Brainy Lady in question, also writes in-depth reviews of the books which cross her path and enjoys experimenting with new techniques and challenges, from lace to dyeing, making this a really inspiring blog.

Although this is mostly a kntting (and crochet) blog, Alison is a keen poly-crafter and her blog showcases her other projects and thrift store finds from quilts to a home-made hollow book. With descriptions of how she created each item or links to the pattern, gorgeous photos of the places she visits and yarn she finds along the way, Brainy Lady is a great blog to get your imagination working and your knitting needles clicking!

Read a great blog? Write a great blog? Tell us what it is and why you like it, and you might see it here next Friday.