Hasty Touch and Tricks of the Trade are also very useful for early HQ success. Hasty Touch costs no CP, and Tricks of the Trade restores CP; between them, you can manage additional uses of Manipulation or Master's Mend, which translates to additional Touches for higher quality.

A word of warning about Rumination, as well - Rumination is very nice when you start out as it stores up a nice chunk of CP for you to cash in later. The unfortunate thing about it, though, is using it wipes out your Inner Quiet, meaning that any Touches you use AFTER Rumination will be crappy Touches. When I used Rumination (I don't anymore - once you get CRP to 50 to obtain Byregot's Blessing it pretty much means you'll never use Rumination again), I generally only used Synthesis steps after using it, never any Touches.