If you are right handed, you should be working from right to left. Bring the sinew or waxed linen up through the hole and go over the leather strip and back down into the same hole. Continue to the next hole, come up through, over the leather and back down into the same hole, pulling the leather lacing tight so that it lays flat. It will cover the holes and look like this on the sides.

Then you can work the pineneedle coil on the outside being careful to come up on the top side of the lacing on the inside of the gourd. It may be easier for you to do the first coil before you do this. If so, just be sure that the first coil is low enough on the gourd to cover the row of stitches which is on the outside.