Patent ID: 7141290

Claim:
A stitch-bonded nonwoven fabric comprising a nonwoven, substantially unpacked substrate having basis weight in the range from about 15 to about 150 g/m 2 , and density in the range from about 0.02 to about 0.12 g/cm 3 , wherein the nonwoven substrate is bonded with a binder applied to the substrate in a sufficiently uniform manner so that substantially no areas greater than the spaces between stitch insertion points are devoid of binder and wherein the binder constitutes from about 2% to about 25% of the total weight of the sum of binder and nonwoven substrate weights, and wherein 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 or more from the as-stitched dimensions without forming local ruptures therein, and wherein the stitch-bonded nonwoven fabric can be washed and dried at least twenty times.