Yeah, I've thought about it and the nature of my panel curtains is such that a 20 cm taped up hem will not look nice at all. So I need to get it sewn properly. I've settled for the following solution.

On Monday I'll ask around at work if someone knows a not too expensive seamstress or knows how to sew (I estimate that for an experienced seamstress the job would not take longer than an hour). If the women at my workplace do not know of anyone, I might bite the bullet and buy a sewing machine and learn how to do it. I figure it will be a worthwhile investment. My trousers always need hemming and my buttons always fall off so it is a good skill to have, and what better way to get motivated to learn than when you need something done, right?

Wish me luck, ha ha. And if you do visit my apartment, try not to comment on the crookedly-hemmed curtains.

Sbrinz, I'll ask around Loeb but the last time I wanted someone to do my curtains they came out to over 100 CHF each which is way beyond the scope of this exercise. . I guess living in Switzerland is good because it encourages you to learn how to do certain small repairs on your own. I actually come from a country where people can sew a full dress for you from measurements (and no patterns) for around 20 CHF and will paint a whole house for you for less than 400CHF, so getting used to paying 100CHF or more for one-hour's worth of unskilled labor is quite a change for me. So I'll just learn to do the unskilled labor myself! (Which ironically means that the labor in question does indeed require skills and training, for I don't have any of them at all!).

Oh well. So it goes.