Sorting the Clips

I climbed onto the wide wooden table and found a shallow tin filled with coated paper clips. They were completely jumbled together. Before doing anything else, I examined each pattern: striped mint green, pastel pink, and polka dots. Taking my time, I aligned seven of them in an orderly row along the wire edge of a yellow notebook. It took steady balance to slide each loop without nudging the others, but the sequence is evenly spaced now.