Hi @Kahsajara, I'll answer as best I can

The Exploration trait only increases experience gained from exploring new areas, and as far as I know doesn't effect skill levels, but I could be wrong.

If you're a cloth wearer I highly recommend that you start leveling Clothing, as once you reach Veteran ranks it will be very costly to hire a Clothier, and you will most likely want new set every few ranks. At level 31 I'd say it's not stirictly necessary to have a blue set right now as you will be regularly aquiring new and improved bits of gear from quests/loot drops, and leveling is still fairly quick. But if you could craft your own, then great! In my opinion it's just not worth the hefty price tag that crafters usually ask for, (especially at your level). Materials are easy enough to aquire if you decon your loot and pick up all the fibre you see. It's also a nice little gold earner too down the line.

I see folks selling blue sets for around 8-10k, though the average price will vary by faction and server, (I'm AD EU), but if you have generous Guildies or friends then you could ask them for a discount or a freebie.

Hello @Kahsajara‌!

A few thoughts, all IMHO of course

I agree with @Woolenthreads: Definitely get Training onto your own clothing (that you are wearing) as fast as possible to help level up the skill. You may need to buy or trade for these, but the side-benefit is you can research them later.

If you haven't already, putting one point into Keen Eye for Cloth will greatly assist you in gathering materials. Get Unraveling to 3/3 as quickly as you can to reap the best benefit from decons. Stitching to 3/3 is also very helpful but do Unraveling first...I was slow to max out Unraveling and I'm still kicking myself over that.

In planning your research:

• Research the traits you feel are most important, first. This may mean going a little out of your way to find a trait you don't have, but it's very helpful, because otherwise you may end up waiting several weeks on that last "Infused" piece you really wanted! Not really a hard and fast rule, but for example if I could choose between researching Divines or Well-Fitted on an item, I'd do Divines first.
• Likewise, saving up a large stock of clothing with the traits you'll want is a good idea. I used a chart and ended up actually typing in the name of each piece of gear so I wouldn't accidentally decon something I needed. (Chances are you'll do that at least once.)
• If you use add-ons, find one which has a research timer and make use of it after you level up Stitching. (I think Wykkd's Framework is the one I use...not sure as the game is down right now.) That will help you keep an eye on when a slot comes free without dashing over to the Clothing table all the time.
• Try to schedule your researches so that each piece of gear increments the number of traits evenly. I.e. Work on 1-trait for all 7 pieces of clothing first, then add the second trait for all 7, then the third, etc.

I agree that at level 31 you probably don't need all Blue gear yet. (Plus you should be getting some good blue drops from mobs that you can use.) But if you can craft your own and want it, by all means go for it! HOWEVER...make sure you have put 3/3 skill points into Tanning Expertise before you so much as touch your first piece of Hemming. 3/3 Tanning Expertise will allow you 100% chance to improve using only two pieces of tempers (Hemming, Embroidery, etc), rather than 5. I would still be cautious with making lots of sets of improved gear, though, because you will burn through your tempers quickly and you will be wanting them at VR levels.

One way of conserving tempers: Since you are already an Enchanter, you might want to consider doing Infused trait on head, chest & legs, and green those & leave the rest white. That'll give you a nice boost.

1) The exploration trait just adds to the experience you gain whenever you get experience from exploring (this goes towards your character level and whatever abilities you have equipped). The training trait helps you level the particular armor line faster.

2) Personally, I leveled all of the crafting on my main character. When I was leveling clothing I would make a whole new set of armor every few levels, but I would just leave it at white quality. The thing was I would make it with the Torug's Pact set bonus, which needs 3 traits researched in 3 separate pieces of armor to get a bonus of 100 armor. For the low levels this means your total armor is even higher than if you upgraded it to a much higher quality.

3) As others have said, I wouldn't spend your gold on bought crafted gear just yet.

There is no need to upgrade ANYTHING until you hit vet levels...there are a handful of fights before then where it helps, but a well placed Atronach can get you through those fights.

Training is great as you will max out the skill faster and can then move on to another armor type or add the perks faster and they are essential for light armor.

After that I suggest infused on major pieces and divine on minor piece (if they have fixed it - if it's still subtracting then divine on 1 piece and infused on the rest - if you pvp you will want to put impenetrable on 2 minor pieces as well).