Elastic tufted fabric and process therefor

An improved process for making a tufted pile nonwoven fabric, the process comprising the steps of

• feeding a nonwoven fibrous substrate to a tufting machine, the substrate having a top face, a bottom face, a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction,
• tufting the substrate with yarns that form tufted pile yarns protruding from the top surface of the substrate and yarn bases penetrating and re-entering the bottom surface of the substrate, and
• then adhering an elastomeric latex back-coating to the bottom of the tufted substrate, the improvement comprising
• providing said nonwoven fibrous substrate which is fed to said tufting machine in said feeding step such that said nonwoven fibrous substrate comprises substantially nonbonded staple fibers or continuous filaments of 1 to 22 decitex, the substrate, before tufting, is stretchable and has a break elongation of at least 20% in the longitudinal and/or transverse direction of the fabric, and the tufted pile nonwoven fabric has an elastic stretch of at least 10% in the longitudinal direction and/or transverse direction of the fabric.