You can make Martha's new prison poncho

Coming soon to a knitting klatsch near you: a pattern for Martha Stewart's infamous prison-break poncho.

Lion Brand Yarn will introduce a free "Welcome Home" poncho pattern, satisfying crocheters and knitters who took one look at the domestic diva's garment and were hooked.

Soon after Stewart boarded a plane to New York wearing the handmade garment, Lion Brand fielded hundreds of e-mails and calls — the most requests it has ever gotten for a pattern.

The free pattern will be ready soon on the yarn company's Web site (www.lionbrand.com). But for those who need a quicker fix, a knockoff poncho on eBay is going for $152.50.

Last Friday, do-it-yourselfers across the country logged onto Internet message boards and began pondering the poncho's design. Chatter over the pattern landed crochet near the top of the Yahoo! Buzz Index this week, with searches on the topic jumping 8 percent the day after Stewart shared the poncho's origins at her New York offices.

It was a going-away present, she told her staff, from a fellow inmate who crochets 12 hours a day with yarn from the prison commissary.

"The night before I left, she handed it to me and said, 'Wear it in good health,' " Stewart recalled.

Staying true to the original design of Stewart's blue-and-tan cape, Lion Brand's first pattern will be crochet. In a few weeks, it will introduce a knit version.