The article is devoted to the expansions of iterated Ito stochastic integrals based on generalized multiple Fourier series converging in the sense of norm in the space $L_2([t, T]^k),$ $k\in\mathbb{N}.$ The method of generalized multiple Fourier series for expansion and mean-square approximation of iterated Ito stochastic integrals of arbitrary multiplicity $k$ ($k\in\mathbb{N}$) with respect to components of the multidimensional Wiener process is proposed and developed. The obtained expansions contain only one operation of the limit transition in contrast to its existing analogues. In the article it is also obtained the generalization of the proposed method for an arbitrary complete orthonormal systems of functions in the space $L_2([t, T]^k),$ $k\in\mathbb{N}$ as well as for complete orthonormal with weight $r(t_1)\ldots r(t_k)$ systems of functions in the space $L_2([t, T]^k),$ $k\in\mathbb{N}$. The comparison of the considered method with the well-known expansions of iterated Ito stochastic integrals based on the Ito formula and Hermite polynomials is given. The convergence in the mean of degree $2n$ $(n \in \mathbb{N})$ and with probability 1 of the proposed method is proved.