A method of making a fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet includes compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber, applying the dewatered web having the apparently random fiber distribution to a translating transfer surface moving at a first speed and 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 creping step occurs under pressure in a fabric creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping fabric. The creping fabric travels at a second speed slower than the speed of the transfer surface. The fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta and web consistency are selected such that the web is creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping fabric to form a web with a drawable reticulum.