Most class gears are made by WVR or LTW. A very small number of pieces are made by ARM (I think just one - BSM boots). Most off-hands are made by BSM, with two being CRP (GSM/WVR) and one being ARM (ALC).

One-stars aren't so bad, imo. I made all my class gears myself and managed to HQ them all. I recall failing to HQ maybe once or twice, but the mats aren't THAT expensive, so just trying again was fine for me. I sold the NQ ones on the MB at cost to recoup their cost. I started with jewelry, as the CP helps immensely when doing the rest, and I could make most of them without even being 50 GSM, but now the best jewelry is expensive and takes Demimateria (10x Fieldcraft Is each), so I'd actually not start with the best.

Instead, I strongly recommend doing this: start with Red Coral Earring (i45), Electrum Wristlets of Crafting (i46), Electrum Rings of Crafting (i47), and Electrum Choker (i49). Do not meld valuable materia into them, but do meld trivially priced crafter materia into them. Stuff that sells for <500gil on your server, if any such exist (they should). Once you've made the endgame jewelry to replace them, if these penultimate pieces are 100% spiritbonded, Convert them. If they aren't, finish Spiritbonding them on your main while doing other things. The items will help you get started, and then become materia that you'll need for your melds.

You might as well do the same with your belt - use the Raptorskin Merchant's Purse (i48 and very cheap to make) with garbage materia in it until you get good enough to make/buy the Dodore Belt, and then break the Raptorskin Merchant's Purse for materia.

Heck, you can do the same as above with the Patrician's set as well if you want. It's the best non-classed crafter gear. Don't use any expensive materia in them as you will be breaking them when you're done with them, but do put garbage materia into them so they Spiritbond faster (and you gain some benefit from the garbage crafter materia while using them). Using Patrician's and second-best Accessories, you should have no trouble crafting the one-star items.

Though we all recommended getting LTW last or near last because the level 50 skill just isn't useful, but unfortunately, a large number of the i55 crafter gears are crafted by LTW, so you might want to get it up a bit high earlier. Also, overall, LTW has made me more profit than every other crafter class combined.


Another note - if you aren't using any food when crafting, consider buying a half stack of NQ Frumenty from a vendor. They cost 7 gil each, so only 350 gil for a half stack. They give you +10 CP (and +3% exp), which is really nice for the price when you don't want to use real food. It's basically a "permanent" +10 CP buff given how cheap the food is, and 10 CP, while not huge, is definitely noticeable, as I'm sure you've started to realize. For reference, HQ Bouillabaisse (the end-game CP food) gives 43 CP.


Also, if you want to make the one-stars less scary, find a cheap one and use Careful Synthesis. Then, use Ingenuity and then Careful Synthesis. Note how much progress each gives, possibly writing it down somewhere (along with your Craftsmanship value). This way, you'll know for sure how much CP/Dur it'll take to finish your craft successfully, so you can be sure to leave enough that you're guaranteed not to fail the synth completely. If you get NQ, you can sell them or use them until you succeed at making an HQ version. Just remember that spiritbonding i55 items is MUCH harder than i45-49 items, since you basically can't do it in open-world content, so don't keep the NQ i55 crafter gears around hoping to break them for materia - the bonding will happen very slowly, if at all, and only from a large number of high level crafts.