Fabric crepe and in fabric drying process for producing absorbent sheet

A method of making a fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet comprising:

• a) forming a nascent web from a papermaking furnish, the nascent web having a generally random distribution of papermaking fiber;
• b) transferring the web having a generally random distribution of papermaking fiber to a translating transfer surface moving at a transfer surface speed;
• c) drying the web to a consistency of from about 30 to about 60 percent including compactively dewatering the web prior to or concurrently with transfer to the transfer surface;
• d) fabric-creping the web from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30 to about 60 percent utilizing a creping fabric with a patterned creping surface, 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 slower than the speed of said transfer surface, the fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta and web consistency being selected such that the web is creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping fabric such that the web has a plurality of fiber-enriched regions of high local basis weight arranged in a pattern corresponding to the patterned creping surface of the fabric,
• e) retaining the wet web in the creping fabric;
• f) drying the wet web while it is held in the creping fabric to a consistency of at least about 90 percent;
• and
• g) drawing the dried web, the step of drawing the dried web being effective to increase the void volume thereof by at least 5%.