Importance

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Abstract

A stretchable stitch-bonded nonwoven fabric is disclosed herein. The fabric includes a nonwoven substrate having basis weight in the range from about 15 to about 150 g/m.sup.2, and density in the range from about 0.02 to about 0.12 g/cm.sup.3. The nonwoven substrate is bonded with a binder applied to the outer surfaces of the substrate in a liquid form in a sufficiently uniform manner so that no areas greater than the spaces between stitch insertion points are devoid of binder. The binder constitutes from about 2% to about 25% of the total weight of the sum of binder and nonwoven substrate weight. The substrate is stitch-bonded with yarns arranged in a stitch pattern that allows the stitch-bonded fabric to be stretched in at least one direction by a factor of about 2.5 to about 5.0 without forming local ruptures therein, and wherein the stitch-bonded nonwoven fabric can be washed and dried at least twenty times.

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First Claim