Dough consistency

[draigwen]

I've just come from the kitchen where I've just made some delicious scones. However, as always seems to happen when making something dough-like, the dough ended up being too sticky and I had to add more flour, which meant that it was a little too floury and not sweet enough.

Does anyone have any idea
(a) why I might be getting dough too sticky (the wrong type of margarine, the wrong type of milk?), or
(b) what the best way to rectify sticky dough is without just adding random amounts of flour until it's non-sticky?