The problem is that you're trying to learn how to model with an advanced technique.

Fabric (and especially cloth simulation) if you can do it well can get you a job.

If you really want to do cloth I recommend just working with draping sheets and creatively texturing/reusing whatever is too difficult.

All that you need to do is draw a curved spline and extrude it.  Then you just grab the wrinkles in the mesh (point selection or some type of magnet tool) and move them around to your heart's content. 

You can then weld the verts together after you created multiple of these sheets to form whatever you want.  All of the details like seams can be textured with paint and or a bump map.

If you want to learn how to model go over to a site like polycount and learn how to build clean and lean mesh topologies.