Quote - so i think i got that one down. 

now anyone know how to get soft decorated groups to behave?  mine have so far always just floated all over the place to the point i just gave up having them and spent tons of time on workarounds

A soft decorated item should NOT be welded to the main cloth and have at least one face that faces the main cloth on the underside. For instance, say you'd like to create a hem. You'd choose a ring of faces of the main cloth in your modeler and do something like a shell extrude. It creates a separate mesh that isn't welded to the other and it has faces that face the item on the underside.

Laurie