[nextos]

IMHO if you can position yourself in a relatively niche domain, you may actually get more value than by creating weekend projects.

In your shoes, I would actually try to get hired now. Probably lots of companies, see e.g. Who is hiring / Who wants to be hired threads, would extend you an offer straight away.

[amalgamated_inc]

Sounds valid too. From OPs post it sounded like he's not very confident in his coding ability any more, so I suggested the weekend projects. But no downside to just applying already and finding out if your confidence/ability is already enough :) If not, can always do more weekend projects until it is.