You may want to add a section to your work history in which you're an independent contractor. You can fill it in with any technologies you encountered or developed (even if it wasn't paid work). That may make the job history seem less abrupt (if that's indeed what you think is the issue).
If you're in need of more references, you may want to ask a friend to provide one or do a small task on a site like elance/rentacoder/guru and ask the employer to sign a letter of reference (you can get some nice boilerplates online). That way you can present a glowing recommendation along with your resume.