A lot has been said about Steve Jobs in the past week since his death, and like many people, even though I did not know him, his life’s work impacted my own life in profound ways.

My first encounter with an Apple product was in late August of 1991 when I bought my first computer.

I had recently begun a graduate program in writing and found that my typing skills were unable to keep pace with the writing requirements. After a quick survey of the classified ads in a newspaper, I found a used Apple IIe; it came with a dot matrix printer and without a user’s manual.

Therein lies the beauty of Apple products: you can generally figure out how to use them without having to read an encyclopedic edition of tech docs. In no time at all, I was busy working on the requirements for my first assignment.

In the two years that I worked on my master’s degree, the Apple IIe did not fail me once.

I finished graduate school, technology continued to march forward, and Steve Jobs continued to do the work that would lead to many innovations in the area of personal electronics.

One of the lesser noted consequences of this technological leap forward that Steve Jobs helped to propel is that the age of personal technology has lead to a resurgence in the area of crafts.

Our numerous gadgets often benefit from a cozy of their own to keep them safe from the ravages of the world and this has ushered in an era of extreme creativity from a growing do-it-yourself crowd.

To note Steve Jobs’ contribution to the world of crafting, I worked on a cozy for the family iPad.

I had several ideas, all of them involving myriad colors and all kinds of geegaws, but then I settled on a more subtle design. I got out my 5.0 mm hook and some worsted weight yarn. With the family iPad handy for fittings:

I set to work.

First I made a swatch, followed by some calculations. Four rows into my project, I realized that my calculations were off, so I frogged (unraveled) what I had done and added an additional 3 chains to the foundation.

By 4:00 p.m., the iCozy was completed and I got this photo of it with the iPad in it:

I think it is safe to say that the man who wanted to put a “ding in the universe” did exactly that.