“Every summer, I’d go and stay with my grandmother in Portland, Ore., for three or four weeks, and we would work on sewing projects together,” recalls Rothwell, 57, of Seattle, who was about 10 when she first operated the electric machine, controlling the stitching speed with a knee lever. Some of Victoria Rothwell’s fondest childhood memories are of sitting beside her grandmother in front of a Singer sewing machine and learning to stitch together scraps of fabric to make clothes for her dolls.
