Frankly, I'm quite fed up with experimenting right now. I'll sand down the marquee and try again.
To make things more interesting, another problem has come up. I have stained the front piece (custom made by a carpenter), it looks gorgeous. Since it's going to have a checker board pattern done in a darker stain at the bottom, I masked the pattern off and applied the stain. Which didn't work. The stain looks to be almost black, but when applied to the lighter stain, if becomes a light grey, if it sticks at all. In some places, it became almost pitch black. So there is no way to get an even finish and unless I find a way to completely remove the stain, a custom made piece of wood is ruined.
I will try now applying the dark stain first, then putting the light stain on top of it (this time on a test piece). Hopefully the dark areas will be sated to the point that the lighter stain doesn't do anything to them. If this also fails, I will be forced to use a combination of stain and paint, which is something I want to avoid.