Some of my tablet-weaving tablets

This isn't all of them.  People give them to me.  Or they are samples.  Or I like them and want to buy them and try them, or maybe just admire them.

They are posed against a ruler to show the variation in sizes -- from about 1" to about 3.5" (or maybe 3.25").  In age they range from the 1980s/1990s to 2026.  (I'm not sure where my meter stick is, but the foot-long ruler gives a pretty good sense of size no matter what the units are.) 

When I first started tablet-weaving, I bought a few packs of tablet-weaving tablets from Robin & Russ Handweavers.  Those are 3.25"-ish, I think.  That was a very common size for tablets then, and in fact, still is a very common available size.  I used them exclusively for many years since I didn't know any other sizes existed.  I mean, sure, I could have bought the same size tablets but with different company logos on them, but why bother?  I still see some Mary Meigs Atwater tablets around on the used-sales sites -- I wonder how old those are, and if there are older branded tablet weaving cards around?

When someone gave me some smaller tablets several years ago, it was something of a revelation.  Wow, so much easier!  I have small hands.  The smaller cards are easier for me to hold and manipulate.  The threads are easier to release if they get caught up in the corners of adjacent cards.  And there's also a bit less waste at the end of the warp.

The 3D printed tablets were made by a friend.  They are incredibly adorable and fun to use.  At some point, I'll try to get a bunch that all match in their design but are different colors, since different color tablets would be excellent for identifying groups of tablets at a glance.  (i.e. which tablets are numbers 16-22, when they end up needing to be turned in a different direction from their neighbors?)

The Lacis tablets are pretty nice because they are fairly small, and because they are plastic of some sort.  The holes don't wear out as quickly.  I expect someday that they'll become brittle with age and start breaking, but for now, they're nice to use.

I haven't tried the wooden tablets yet, mostly because the sets are fairly small and I've mostly been doing patterns lately that require more tablets than are in the wooden sets.

For some of these tablets, I only have 1.  Or 8.  Or 10, or 25.  I can use them but only for some patterns.  It's nice to have several dozen tablets of a particular type so I can make wider bands.

Someday I'll drag out more of my tablets to photograph.  By then I might have even more than I do now.  I don't buy every brand I see, but I do acquire ones that are cute and interesting and/or different from what I currently have.  I also make them myself, especially when teaching others to tablet weave.  Old cereal boxes have cardboard that works pretty well for that purpose.  I can easily get a set of 12 tablets per box.

I guess I'm a collector of tablet-weaving tablets these days.  Oh, well, could be worse!