The blue-gray crocheted poncho with flecks of tan gained instant popularity.

The blue-gray crocheted poncho with flecks of tan gained instant popularity.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- Call it the perfect knitting storm.
Call it the reincarnation of a softer, gentler Martha Stewart.
Just don't call knitting shops looking for the pattern or the poncho.
"The last time I checked, the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not issue 'Spring Pattern No. 1297 Prison Poncho,'" said Kristine Kirby Webster, owner of Knit Happens in suburban Alexandria, Va.
Webster said her phone hasn't stopped ringing since a slim and trim Stewart strode out of Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia this month wearing a blue-gray crocheted poncho with flecks of tan.
Ilana Rabinowitz, a spokeswoman for Lion Brand Yarn Co., the nation's leading supplier of top-shelf yarns, said the company's server crashed Saturday after more than 40,000 people tried to download a Coming Home crochet pattern the company posted Friday on its Web site, www.lionbrand.com. It's now available, as is another pattern, called the Freedom Poncho, posted on www.interweave.com by Interweave Press, which specializes in publishing books on knitting.
Departing gift
But beyond the touching story of the inmate who used yarn from a prison commissary to crochet the cloak as a parting gift for Stewart, there's nothing special about the poncho. "It's like the K-mart version of Martha," Webster said with a chuckle.
Amy Wertheimer, who belongs to a knitting group at Knit Happens, said, "When I saw it, I was quite surprised that that was the outfit she chose to leave in.
"Her lawyers could have brought her something else," Wertheimer said, her needles working green yarn into a sweater. "She left in a private jet."
"It made me laugh, because I thought she was trying to be a common woman, bonding with the prisoners," said Donna Xander, sifting through a rainbow of shades and textures in search of the perfect yarn for her next project.
It should come as no surprise that Stewart created such a frenzy. Knitting and crocheting have seen a recent resurgence, and fans are hungry for new patterns and ideas, said Deborah Candeub, who was knitting a blue cardigan.
"It's amazing how many people actually knit," said Candeub, who has been knitting for 20 years. "For years, nobody knit. A lot of yarn companies weren't smart marketers. There's just been an explosion, literally in the last five years."
Such celebrity knitters as Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Uma Thurman have made the craft more popular among young people. Stewart walking out of prison in a hand-crocheted poncho just added to knitting's appeal, Candeub said.
"I think it's probably like the perfect knitting storm," Candeub said. "A lot of things have happened at the same time. "
Whodunit?
Niki Nelson, who was focused on knitting the body for a teddy bear, said she hopes to hear more about the woman behind the poncho instead of the woman who wore it.
"I just wonder about the lady who designed it," said Nelson, noting the poncho seemed to be a labor of love. "If she was just a regular person trying to sell her pattern, they (yarn companies) would just ignore her. I don't know what she's in prison for, but it obviously took a lot of creativity. It was really a pretty poncho."