Australian Made Heat Packs: How Each One Is Sewn in Brisbane

"Australian made" gets printed on a lot of things that were put together here out of parts made somewhere else. So here's exactly what happens to a SpotPack between your order landing and a parcel going out, and where I think the line honestly sits.

It starts with the fabric

Every pack is double sided. A designer cotton print on one face, soft corduroy on the other. I buy the cotton in small runs, and that's the thing customers notice most about me, and the thing that frustrates them most.

When a print is gone, it's gone. There's no reordering it from a warehouse. That's why the same shape comes and goes in a dozen different fabrics, and why the ones people love best are usually the ones that sold out first. If you've got your eye on a particular print, don't wait too long.

It's also why I take custom requests. If there's a fabric that matters to you, ask me. If I can get it, I can sew it.

Then the lupin

Every pack is filled with Australian-grown lupin seed instead of wheat. Australia grows most of the world's lupin crop, nearly all of it in Western Australia, where it goes in as a rotation crop and puts nitrogen back into the soil.

I use it because it's close to odourless heated, it doesn't shed wheat dust, and there's no gluten in it. The full comparison is in lupin vs wheat heat packs.

How a pack actually gets put together

The order is much the same whatever the shape.

1. Cut. The print and the corduroy get cut to the pattern for that size.
2. Sew the inner. On the packs with a separate inner bag, that goes together first, and it's sewn into compartments. The Original has three. The Mega Large has more, because a 1.8kg pack that lets all its filling slide to one end is no use on a back.
3. Fill by weight. Every size has a target weight rather than a target volume, and each compartment gets filled on its own. That's what makes a pack sit evenly instead of lumping up.
4. Close it up and finish. Then the outer cover, on the three shapes that have one.

The sizes run from a 600g Mini for a child up to a 2.5kg Ex-large collar pack. That range isn't a catalogue exercise. It's what fourteen years of people saying "could you make one that..." turns into.

Why everything is made to order

There's no shelf of finished packs here. When an order comes in, that pack gets made, which is why I say 7 to 10 business days before it's posted.

The upside is real. You choose the fabric, nothing sits in a box for a year, and a run that's sold out can sometimes still be made if I've got the fabric left. The downside is just as real, and I'd rather say it than bury it: it's slower than buying something off a shelf. If you need a heat pack tomorrow, the chemist has one. If you want a particular fabric in a particular shape, this is the trade.

It also means that coming up to Mother's Day and Christmas, and right through the cold weeks of June and July, the queue gets longer. Ordering early in the season is the difference between a week and a fortnight.

Fourteen years of small changes

The range is really a record of what people asked me for. The collar versions exist because customers told me the neck packs stopped too low. The Back Strap exists because people wanted heat while they were up and about. The removable covers exist because families share packs and wanted to be able to wash them. The Aussie Furry Friends exist because children wanted the one with the animals on it.

I've been on Etsy since 2012 and have sent out more than 1,900 orders, with a 4.9 star average across 367 reviews. Almost none of that came from advertising. It came from people buying a second one, then a third as a gift.

If you're choosing your first, the guide to shapes is the quickest way in.

Where the "Australian made" line honestly sits

The cutting, the sewing, the compartments, the filling and the finishing all happen here in Brisbane, by hand. The lupin is grown in Australia.

The cotton itself is milled overseas, the way nearly all quilting cotton sold in this country is. I'd rather tell you that than print "Australian made" and let you assume more than is true. What you're buying is Australian work, an Australian crop, and a pack that a person in Brisbane actually made for your order.

One consequence worth knowing: every pack is a little different. Fabric placement, pattern and colour vary from the photographs, because each one is cut individually from a print that repeats. Two packs in the same fabric won't be identical. That's the nature of it rather than a fault.

Seeing one in person

If you'd rather feel the weight before you buy, SpotPacks are stocked by pharmacies, clinics and gift shops around Brisbane and interstate. The current list is on the where to buy page.

Otherwise, have a look at what's available now. The fabrics on the site are the ones I can actually make this week. And if you want something specific, just ask me.