A fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet having a plurality of interconnected regions of different local basis weight, the sheet prepared by a process comprising the steps of: (a) compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber; (b) applying the dewatered web having the apparently random fiber distribution to a translating transfer surface that is moving at a transfer surface speed; (c) fabric-creping the web from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30 percent to about 60 percent utilizing a patterned creping fabric, the creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric-creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric, wherein the creping fabric is traveling at a fabric-creping speed that is slower than the transfer surface speed, and selecting the fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta, and web consistency such that the web is creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping fabric to form a creped web with a drawable reticulum having the plurality of interconnected regions of different local basis weights including at least: (i) a plurality of fiber-enriched regions having a high local basis weight, interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions; (d) applying the creped web to a drying cylinder; (e) drying the creped web on the drying cylinder to form a dried web; (f) removing the dried web from the drying cylinder, wherein steps (d), (e), and (f) are performed so as to substantially preserve the drawable reticulum; characterized in that the process of preparing the sheet further comprises (g) drawing the dried web to form the absorbent cellulosic sheet, wherein the drawing step expands the fiber-enriched regions in the machine direction. (a) compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber; (b) applying the dewatered web having the apparently random fiber distribution to a translating transfer surface that is moving at a transfer surface speed; (c) fabric-creping the web from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30 percent to about 60 percent utilizing a patterned creping fabric, the creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric-creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric, wherein the creping fabric is traveling at a fabric-creping speed that is slower than the transfer surface speed, and selecting the fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta, and web consistency such that the web is creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping fabric to form a creped web with a drawable reticulum having the plurality of interconnected regions of different local basis weights including at least: (i) a plurality of fiber-enriched regions having a high local basis weight, interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions; (i) a plurality of fiber-enriched regions having a high local basis weight, interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions; (d) applying the creped web to a drying cylinder; (e) drying the creped web on the drying cylinder to form a dried web; (f) removing the dried web from the drying cylinder, wherein steps (d), (e), and (f) are performed so as to substantially preserve the drawable reticulum; (g) drawing the dried web to form the absorbent cellulosic sheet, wherein the drawing step expands the fiber-enriched regions in the machine direction.