how to block a thread and resume it

A condition variable is appropriate here- actually, a pair of condition variables, because the consumer also needs to block if the queue is empty:

pthread_cond_t qu_empty_cond = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;
pthread_cond_t qu_full_cond = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;
pthread_mutex_t qu_mutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;

void *num_consumer(void *arg)
{
    while(1) {        
        int num;

        pthread_mutex_lock(&qu_mutex);
        while (qu.size() < 1)
            pthread_cond_wait(&qu_empty_cond, &qu_mutex);
        num = qu.pop();
        if (qu.size() < 5)
            pthread_cond_signal(&qu_full_cond);
        pthread_mutex_unlock(&qu_mutex);
        do_something_with(num);
    }
}

int main()
{
    pthread_create(&tid, NULL, num_consumer, NULL);
    while(1) {
        int num;

        produce(&num);

        pthread_mutex_lock(&qu_mutex);
        queue.push(num);
        pthread_cond_signal(&qu_empty_cond);
        if (qu.size() >= 10)
             do {
                pthread_cond_wait(&qu_full_cond, &qu_mutex);
             } while (qu.size() >= 5);
        pthread_mutex_unlock(&qu_mutex);
    }
}

Note that that when the producer waits on the condition variable, the queue mutex is atomically released.