I did it!  It is finished - and it turned out pretty well for an experiment.  Putting the appliques on the fleece saved me time, since making the afghan takes me 3-4 weeks, but it wasn't as fast as I thought it would be.  I thought I could just whip this out in a week or so - Not!  The top has blue fringe on it, I just couldn't get a good picture of it (and Jasper wanted to be in the picture too).