so if you're serious about ** items HQ, you need:
- 347 Craftmanship
- 340 Control
- 370 CP with food

These stats can only be achieved by melding all your crafting gear. Typically you'll want to pentameld your accessories and belt to the max stats since they are cross class, then do the left side gear.

The following link provides information on how to properly meld crafting gear. It's a very useful guide.
http://www.ffxivguild.com/ff14-arr-d...materia-melds/

Food will usually be used to boost your CP because even with melded gear, you won't be able to reach 370 CP required to guarantee 2 star HQ (the max is 345 which allows you to use Stone soup +17 CP to reach the cap).
BTW, not all crafting class are worth melding for 2 stars:
- LTW, WVR, GSM are the most useful because they have a lot of ** recipes, the gear are useful, and they make good profit
- ARM, BSM are good and have decent utility and profitability but
- CRP, ALC, CUL are pretty bad. don't bother melding these classes.