Yastiks - or pillow or bolster covers - are the most desirable of small Turkish rugs, eagerly sought after by collectors because of their miniature adaptations of many classical Anatolian designs. Yastiks occur all across Turkey; virtually every type of Turkish rug production includes the Yastik format. Originally they were woven in pile followed by an additional section in kilim flatweave as large as the pile area. The whole weaving was then folded in half and sewn along the sides like a saddlebag to create the receptacle for stuffing or for inserting an interior pillow. Few Yastiks have preserved this backing. Normally it was removed in the rug trade to make them into small floor rugs or mats, But Yastiks were traditionally used on the divans or sofa benches of the Turkish living room. The earliest examples were made of velvet in Ottoman court factories of the seventeenth century. The pile carpet Yastiks are adaptations or descendents of these velvet forerunners, whose designs were now adapted to a village weaving sensibility.
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