Don.
Yes it's certainly to do with the coarseness of the material, coupled with the small f/stop, as you know I'm viewing on a 1600 x 1200 res. LCD. Maybe that's why I tend to see the grain of the fabric which then makes the image look a little noisy.
Leif.
The lighting. well actually quite a lot
My Canon twin light macro flash, with the Sigma Super and two Jessops mini-cells as slaves + 2 halogen desk lamps.
Will take a photo of the set-up to show how the lights where arranged, this I will upload a little later in the day.
The two desk lamps where placed behind the "Maplins Light Studio" The heads where angled at approx 70 deg to give a gradation from darker at the bottom to lighter at the top.
This was an attempt to give the impression that the photo was taken outside. I then selected the blue channel in levels to achieve the shade of blue that we would get on a beautiful sunny day.
Harry