Poor Man's Velvet

When we were at the tulip festival last week we saw a lot of different tulips, but I didn't see any that looked like this. This flower was growing in my wife's garden. It's fascinating, and funny looking. I think I captured it a little past its prime, but it's still pretty neat.

Last week I observed the famous Uncle Robert using a piece of black velvet cloth to create a nice background for his macro shots. I don't have a fancy piece of velvet, but I wanted to try the technique anyway. I did have my wife's black coat, so I hung it on my tripod behind this funky tulip. As it turns out, that looked stupid. However, it did make it easy to create a mask on Photoshop, and then insert my own black background.

I sharpened this photo, but I'm still not happy with some of the edges. More sharpening didn't help. Any hints?

Canon PowerShot S2 IS, 6mm, f/3.5, 1/80 sec, ISO 50