Patent ID: 7588660

Claim:
An absorbent sheet of cellulosic fibers comprising a mixture of hardwood fibers and softwood fibers arranged in a reticulum having: (i) a plurality of pileated fiber enriched regions of relatively high local basis weight interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions whose fiber orientation is biased along the direction between pileated regions interconnected thereby, wherein the relative basis weight, degree of pileation, hardwood to softwood ratio, fiber length distribution, fiber orientation, and geometry of the reticulum are controlled such that the sheet exhibits a % CD stretch which is at least about 2.75 times the MD/CD dry tensile ratio of the sheet, and wherein the sheet exhibits a percent CD stretch of at least about 4 and a dry tensile ratio of from about 0.4 to about 4.