Epic fail on the VW!

I've been practicing a lot on clay lately and I've been trying out canes and the millefiori technique. There's a lot of tutorials online so I figured, how hard could it be?
My boyfriend's Volkswagen Christmas party is a couple of weeks away so I thought (insert lightbulb here) "I could make canes of the VW logo, stick 'em on keychains and he could give them out as gifts to his friends!" And so...

That's what the logo should look like.

Now, I started on the canes - I conditioned, cut, reduced and it just wasn't working!

I was getting so frustrated because I was wasting so much clay since I was using whole blocks for the cane! And I kept trying and trying :(

I finally had to call it quits at 4 in the morning! 
I had to send a 'distress message' to purpleluggage.multiply.com who very kindly gave me tips on what I could be doing wrong - it could be that the clay was too soft OR you're supposed to wait after making the cane before reducing & I didn't do this!
>Sigh< I can't believe I lost a lot of sleep (and clay) over this project ;( Will clay another day.