need some help with regions following a concave of the surface and be concave too

[myshop1044]

attached is a attempt to create a football using the new3 D tools.
I have a football ptn hidden. My question is can a region( the seams left and right of the strings)
follow the curve of the surface and be concave at the same time. Please take a look and let me know
if I'm on the right track or not, feel free to fix anything , but let me know what you did.
Perry B.

[mathman]

Try adding puffing (curve) on the rectangles you have for the seam. If that isn't quite what you want, use subtractive merge. Might be close.