Not every knitter wants to be a designer, but most would like to have the skills to customize a design to make it their own. In this book Wendy Bernard presents 25 sweater designs, along with inventive variations for 10 of those patterns (photos included for all 25 designs plus the 10 variations). Wendy employs her hilarious writing style to lament the common pitfalls of knitting and provides step-by-step lessons on customization so that one can customize any pattern - not just the ones included in the book - to their own liking. Patterns are written for a wide range of sizes that the knitter can either knit as is or customize.
For more adventurous knitters there is a 'Starting from Scratch' section with formulas for how to design a sweater with no pattern at all, as well as a tutorial on how to make a dress form to mate one's figure out of duct tape, a hanger and some batting. Custom Knits is both a pattern book and a reference book for the budding designer.