Abstract:
Articles are manufactured from textile material composed of filaments prepared from blended fiber-forming polymers having different chemical properties, at least one of the fiber-forming polymers being dispersed as fibrils in a lower melting point polymeric matrix. The article is produced by heating the material to a temperature above the melting point of the matrix-forming polymer but below the melting point of the dispersed fibrils to shrink said article thereby decreasing the porosity thereof and afterwards forming the heated material into a three-dimensional shape using vacuum or other fluid pressure.