I found a way to make the tradeskill portion easier for 1.5 and 2.0 both.
I got the mastery AAs for tailoring and pottery (3 levels of each cost = 3,6,9 for levels so 36 AAs spent total)
When you are max mastery, you automatically have a 50% chance to suceed in a combine no matter your skill.
After you get the AAs, go to your trainer and spend as many points as you can into pottery and tailoring (21?) then go do your combines.
Took me 7 combines to polish all 3 symbols and 2 combines for sash at 6 skill pottery and 2 skill tailoring.
Hope this saves someone some time!
--Dikkan