It's not his ears then? So it must be the noise.
Is there anything at your mom's that makes a noise and something bad happened to him while it was making noise? (Bad to him, not necessarily bad to us)
What about at the vet's?
When you mentioned him attacking the vacuum, I thought of my Captain, he does the same thing when he hears the noise. We have a central vac, so the noise is in the basement, so we tend to run it when he's outside. In the winter, I try to put him in another room. However, I never coddle him or say in a whiny voice, Poor thing, big bad sweeper won't get you. Dogs take that type of behavior as meaning there is something to be afraid of, even the person I love the most is scared. Some dogs will attack it to protect the person, some will run in fear.
Just treat your sewing like you're not afraid of it, and sort of ignore him
If he's acting scared in another room, he needs a confidence booster. Learning something, whether it's sit, down, whatever, something that you can demonstrate how proud you are. Eventually, he will too.
It's funny, we keep the vacuum attachment in a closet, with other things, and whenever the door is opened, Captain gets worried.