Proportions are a problem for most tiers. Tails will be too long, wings in the wrong place, bodies to long or too short, the list is long when it comes to mistakes you can make.  The only cure for bad proportions is measurement. You must measure the wings, tail and hackle of your flies religiously if your flies are to come out looking right. 

Before the measurements start, before anything else you must start establish the placement of your wings. The following steps will put your wings where they belong. You can use this with standard dry fly hooks of most any hook size.  If you do you will find that there will be enough room to build a body, tie in hackle, wrap your hackle and when you have made your wraps you will have room to tie off the hackle and make your whip finish knot. Try this technique it works.

Start your thread wraps in the middle of the hook shank. Wrap consecutive wraps towards the eye of the hook.  Don't cross over any wraps just wrap towards the eye, smooth even wraps.
Stop wrapping when you get one eye size from the eye.
Now wrap back over the thread you just laid down.  Wrap all the way back to the starting point.
Trim your tag end off.
Final step. Wrap towards the eye and stop in the middle of the thread bed you just laid down.  This is the tie in point for your dry fly wings. This works for any size dry fly hook if the hook is a standard length hook.