Ok so I'm fairly new to this game. I have two characters, one who took herbalism and skinning which is going fine, and then I just made the other which I have under alchemy and leather-working (to correspond with my other character via supplies sent from the mail to myself). Anyways, since these two are my first production professions, I'm kinda lost. Of course, after you learn apprentice, you're at skill level one. I browsed through every single potion recipe and pattern and they all seem to require a skill level of 15 or greater! But if there's not something to start out with level 1, then how do I level up?! Do I need to level up my character a bit? I'm only level 12 on that character, does that make a difference. Does it mean level 15, instead of skill level 15?

When you learn a profession, there are starting recipes in your recipe books. Level those until they turn yellow or green, then go to the trainer and learn more recipes.

Red: not learnable, not usable
Orange: guaranteed a skill up
Yellow: 50% chance of getting a skill up
Green: 25% chance of getting a skill up
Grey: 0% of getting skilled up

Go to your spell book and under the professions tab. Open the Alchemy book or lw book and it has lvl 1 recipes ready and waiting. You need to send the herbs and leather you got to your toon. Buy the vials for the potions from the vendor near the alchemy trainer. Click on one of the recipes and find/use the items listed. As you start to level your profession the recipes will go from orange to yellow to green to gray. Gray recipes give zero leveling points, green you might get one point ever 1 to 10 times you use it, the yellow ones give you a skill point almost every time and the orange recipes give you a skill point every time. With you being level 12 you will have a profession level cap until you level your character higher. Just keep checking the trainer and seeing what you can train.

iam not sure man sorry