Use the mesh tool in 3D. To make anything smoothly fabric-like takes a long time, many nodes and meticulous artistic modeling decisions. Make a bunch of nodes in the plan view, compose them in 3D.
You'll also need to consider your surface material. Find a coarse woven pattern to disguise sharp ridges that will inevitably develop. Another way to hide sharpness is to employ two meshes: an underlying opaque mesh and a duplicate, hovering just above, with a perforated texture pattern. This softens the surface without losing definition.
I am reminded of my last experience modeling a napkin. Except this wasn't in the computer, it was in the dining room of the last voyage of the ship that stood in for the Love Boat, somewhere between New York and Bermuda.
They had been hauling out the grub from the galley for days. How? The deal was that you could only get the galley tour if you took the napkin-folding lesson beforehand. Being an origami enthusiast, i had no trouble with the "flat" and the "two corner triangle", but "elves boot?"
Fuggedabowdit.
Dwight Atkinson
