Patent ID: 8328985

Claim:
A method of making a fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet, the method comprising: (a) compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber; (b) applying the nascent 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 to about 60 percent utilizing a patterned creping fabric, the fabric-creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric, wherein the fabric is traveling at a fabric speed that is slower than the speed of the transfer surface, the web being creped from the transfer surface and wherein the creping fabric is adapted to contact the transfer surface and applies pressure to the web against the transfer surface such that the fibers of the web are redistributed on the creping fabric to form a web with a drawable reticulum having a plurality of interconnected regions of different local basis weights including at least (i) a plurality of fiber enriched regions of a high local basis weight having a plurality of microfolds with fold lines extending transverse to the machine direction, interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of lower local basis weight linking regions, wherein the drawable reticulum of the web is characterized in that it comprises a cohesive fiber matrix capable of increases in void volume when dried and subsequently drawn; (d) drying the web to form a dried web; and (e) drawing the dried web in the machine direction to expand the plurality of microfolds.