thanks for the suggestions!  sorry to take so long to reply- i'm still healing from an operation a few weeks ago, and i'm off and on in terms of my computer time.  i haven't been able to try any of them yet, but i'll let you know if i can get good results!  just to let say, like Serge Marck, i'll be using Poser's cloth sim, not Blender's.  i don't know how to use Blender's yet.   if i can figure it out, i might work with that instead.